Children's Centre

Enrolment 24-25

The educational activities of the University of Parma's Children's Centre will begin on 2 September 2024.
The Children's Centre will welcome a maximum of 90 children from 0 to 6 years of age, in line with the University's philosophy of interaction with the local community and its focus on the younger generations and families.

The Children's Centre promotes the development of girls and boys with the participation of adults (families, educational teams, communities) in an inclusive and innovative context that is attentive to the specific characterisitcs of each child. It will focus on the quality of the educational relationship and on activities with one individual and in small gropus, as a basis for further development and training.

In the school year 2024-25 we will run one kindergarten section with 20 children and one pre-school section with 25 children. In the school year 2025-26, the number of available places will be doubled thanks to the opening of two more sections.

Audience

The Children's Centre welcomes children from 3 months to 3 years of age in the crèche and children from 3 to 6 years of age in the nursery school. It favours free access for families without distinction of gender, different abilities, nationality, ethnicity, religion or economic condition.

The services of the Children's Centre priritise users of the University of Parma, i.e. children and grandchildren of regularly-enrolled students (including scholarship holders, research grant holders, PhD students and postgraduate), technical-administrative staff and technologists, lecturers and researchers.

The applicant must qualify as internal user of the University at the time of the first application; should it lapse, the child already attending will retain the place for educational continuity, but the rates for external users will apply.

Places not covered by University users will be made available to external users.

Enrollment

All information on available places and how to access them can be found in the call for applications, which will be available shortly.

Registration for 2024-25 is closed.

Timetable

The activities of the Children's Centre normally take place from 1 September to 31 July of the following year.

The Centre is open from Monday to Friday and is closed on public holidays.

The morning reception service takes place between 7.30 a.m. and 9.00 a.m., followed by the educational activities from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Between 3.30 p.m. and 4 p.m. the children are reunited with their families.

There is an extra time service from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. upon request. The service has an extra cost and is activated for a maximum number of children subject to a minimum number of enrolled children.

Headquarter

The Children's Centre is set in the Science and Technology Campus, in green surroundings, close to the grove and the Cinghio Torrent, the sports, social and sustainable mobility area and high-level scientific laboratories. This location defines its identity and opens up broad possibilities for the development of outdoor education.

It is housed in a completely eco-sustainable building which also hosts other educational and social services, representing the network efforts of the University and the Foundation Academy of Extraordinary Days (FAGS). It also reflects the team spirit of the local community and characterises the transparency and permeability between inside and outside, the variety of age groups and people involved in the educational activities.

Operator

The management of the Centre's educational services (crèche and kindergarten), the auxiliary services, catering and cleaning of the premises are assigned to AURORADOMUS Cooperativa Sociale ONLUS on a three-year contract basis (from 1 September 2024 to 31 July 2027).

The University of Parma retains the supervision and direction of the entire project, the administrative management (regulations, notices of enrolment, fees and collection of fees) and control over the proper execution of the contract.

Purposes and pedagogical project

The Children's Centre project stems primarily from the need to respond to both the rights of care and education of children and the needs of families to be supported in the educational task. It helps balancing life and work, and is based on the most recent guidelines on children's services and the traditional and qualified experience of the local services and their consolidated collaboration with the University of Parma in terms of research, training and innovation.

Furthermore, the project benefits from the experiences of university crèches in Italy (joining the network promoted by the University of Milan Bicocca) and abroad, making the University of Parma's Children's Centre a potentially international centre of research and innovation.

The pedagogical identity and key educational assumptions of the Centre were defined by a Scientific Committee of experts identified by the University of Parma, which drew up the Guidelines for the Pedagogical Project of the Children's Centre of the University of Parma. The Scientific Committee, appointed by the Rector, supervises and directs the project and the related research, teaching and third mission activities so as to evaluate the effectiveness of the pedagogical project and implementation of the model.