TUimelaar director Toon Christiaens is extremely excited about the anniversary event of the daycare center. “The children have been counting days for weeks and we all had a most wonderful day. Even the sun broke through at the right time.”

Circus Bongo pitched the smallest of their seven tents at the daycare center and entertained the children and their parents with their acts, including a clown, jugglers, acrobats, and a limbo dancer. A popcorn cart was rolled in, the kids could have their faces painted, and study association Industria opened the doors of their ‘Villa’ to offer the adults a drink.

2013 is a special year for the TUimelaar, and not just because they’re celebrating their fifth luster: this year will be the first the daycare center will have to introduce an active acquisition policy. “We’re suffering somewhat from the crisis and the government’s measures concerning daycare, too. What it boils down to is that we only do half groups on some days, with seven instead of fourteen children. That way we can do with a single supervisor, which allows us to compensate for the loss of income due to a slightly smaller number of children to care for.”

The daycare center has also been working on the implementation of horizontal groups (one for children aged 0-2.5, one for children aged 2.5-4) instead of the current vertical groups (for children aged 0-4). Today was the first day they worked with the new, horizontal groups. Christiaens says the TUimelaar was ‘ready for substantive developments’, partly because of the increasing interest in preschool and early-childhood education at daycare centers. “Relatively, we’re organizing more themed activities than we used to. It’s easier to work with that in more homogenous groups.”

In September, staff and partners of the daycare center will be invited to celebrate the anniversary during a staff party, which will be ‘fairly low-profile’ as usual, according to the director. “But it will be a bit more elaborate than usual. After all, you have to keep celebrating, especially in these times, or we’ll all end up in an emotional crisis to boot.”