Cap Canaille, one of the leading providers of bilingual (English/French) daycare centers in Suisse Romande, has just opened a new daycare center in Bulle.
The Bulle center is located in the new building complex at Chemin Champ-Francey 4 (behind MacDonald’s Restaurant). It is the fifth in a series of crèches opened by the Swiss childcare specialists in the past few years. With 8 main childcare rooms, allocated according to language and age group, the center will provide "educare" for 60 children aged from 3 months to school-aged. Each room has a door leading outside and some to the playground, purposely designed to stimulate child’s play. A biometric access system provides an extra level of safety for all children at the crèche, and high door knobs prevent toddlers from wandering between rooms without supervision.
The Bulle center is open 12 hours daily from Monday through Friday from 06:30 until 18:30, extendible on request to 19:30. Parents can opt to leave their child either for a full day, a short or long morning, or a short or long afternoon. Companies who reserve spaces for their employees can divide the day between employees, splitting a day into two 6-hour slots, for example. To provide maximum flexibility, the center is open throughout the year (closure only between Christmas and New Year), with registration and entry possible at any time during the year. Siblings are entitled to a reduction, and subsidies from the communes of Bulle and Riaz for their residents are expected.
Bulle Center Director, Moïra Fattebert, who joins from Cap Canaille Villars-sur-Glâne (which she has led since 2010) explained the center’s approach to building in play and emotional well-being into childcare: “Toys and games are purposefully designed for different ages in order to empower children, building on themes which vary throughout the year. Children engage in a range of activities including music, stories and tales, excursions, which are helpful for building awareness of the alphabet, writing, mathematics, and science.”
Core values are bilingualism, flexibility, pedagogy and the holistic view of the child. Educators help children to discover and develop as well-rounded, confident and curious individuals, who have shared and learnt from different languages and cultures, building a firm foundation for success in their scholastic future.
Cap Canaille will create 20 new childcare jobs in Bulle, and additional jobs in supporting services such as cleaning, catering, laundry and accounting. Peter Zahnd who directs the business development of Cap Canaille described the decision criteria for opening a new center: “Important conditions for us in evaluating a situation are a stable birth rate, attractive rent, the participation of the commune and local employers. These are all critical factors in providing the inhabitants of Bulle and the surrounding area an opportunity to find harmony between work and family life.”
Noting the growing importance that companies attribute to family-friendly policies, Peter added: “Companies in Switzerland are increasingly recognizing the benefits of employer-supported daycare (ESD), as the financial benefits of family-friendly policies in terms of employee engagement and diversity become undeniable.”
Cap Canaille Bulle
Chemin Champ-Francey 4
1630 Bulle
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+41 26 913 78 43
www.capcanaille.ch
Photos: © Cap Canaille
