In-home Preschool

[Frogsandrabbits]

Have a question, hopefully I can explain it well enough:

Saw on a local facebook swap site a posting for a new preschool "Children's Wellness Center" in a residential home. Everything looks great, they have an ECE, RECE and dietician. The program is very similar to daycare in my opinion, the schedule etc.
What I'm wondering is - do you need a particular license to offer a preschool type daycare or how are you able to do this? Even though they have two ECE's they would still only be allowed 5 children, but if its a preschool they would fall under different regulations right?
In my home daycare I do offer pre school learning (because that's what daycare is!) as well as homework assistance for my school kids.
Anyone else run something similar to the above, a preschool in home? Any tips and advice, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Lee-Bee]

The term "pre-school" doesn't have any regulations behind it. Essentially if they are meeting the home daycare rules then they can call themselves what every they want because at the end of the day they are just a home daycare that is trying to specialize to draw in families. It's just a marketing gimmick.

[kindertime]

I agree, also, in my opinion, a preschool wouldn't have infants. Just the 2-5 year olds. But, like Lee-Bee said, there are no specifics. I once worked at a nursery school. Just 2.5 - 5 year olds and only in the morning.

[Van]

In BC a preschool ratio is 8 to 1 so 2 ECE teachers could have 16 over 3s in on home IF the house is big enough for the regulated space required for each child if not the numbers could be cut back to 10 depending on the house/rooms used for daycare

[Lee-Bee]

In BC a preschool ratio is 8 to 1 so 2 ECE teachers could have 16 over 3s in on home IF the house is big enough for the regulated space required for each child if not the numbers could be cut back to 10 depending on the house/rooms used for daycare

That ratio is for preschool AGE children in a daycare centre though. Technically a preschool is just a school before formal school so if they are not licenced to be a daycare centre the 1:8 isn't in play they are limited to the number of children allowed per home daycare. I would assume this is just a home daycare catering to 2.5-5yr olds.

[playfelt]

I do know a couple providers that have done the preschool and for one it worked really well and the other one eventually gave up and went the conventional route. Yes the same home daycare rules applied but they had 5 children in the morning and 5 in the afternoon plus her own kids plus her friend that helped with the daycare had some kids too but didn't count because they were with their mom - one of the reasons why kids with their own parents are now considered to count was to avoid situations such as this. So daily they had 10 daycare children and parents paid a tidy sum for preschool but she wanted the teaching aspects of it - basically she was homeschooling her own children and inviting others to come and do the same lessons. The key is that the morning group goes home before lunch and then afternoon group arrives after lunch so there is no overlap.

The one thing you have to wonder if making sure they know that it is 5 children per home and not per adult as in just because there is a helper there can't be more kids.

[Frogsandrabbits]

I do know a couple providers that have done the preschool and for one it worked really well and the other one eventually gave up and went the conventional route. Yes the same home daycare rules applied but they had 5 children in the morning and 5 in the afternoon plus her own kids plus her friend that helped with the daycare had some kids too but didn't count because they were with their mom - one of the reasons why kids with their own parents are now considered to count was to avoid situations such as this. So daily they had 10 daycare children and parents paid a tidy sum for preschool but she wanted the teaching aspects of it - basically she was homeschooling her own children and inviting others to come and do the same lessons. The key is that the morning group goes home before lunch and then afternoon group arrives after lunch so there is no overlap.

The one thing you have to wonder if making sure they know that it is 5 children per home and not per adult as in just because there is a helper there can't be more kids.

THANK YOU! Yes, that is what I was thinking exactly. I want to make sure they aren't thinking they can have 5 kids PER adult because they have strong emphasis on the ECE and the RECE and Dietician. The split day is something that didn't cross my mind even!

[playfelt]

But we all know how much money you make from 5 kids - not enough for 3 professionals to share.

[Frogsandrabbits]

Thanks everyone, insight is always appreciated.
I confirmed today that they are indeed running it as a daycare just their advertising method indicated more. my program is similar to a lot of these seemingly specialized daycares.