About us
A leading provider of early childhood education and care.
At UBC Child Care, we proudly offer leading early childhood education at our licensed group child care and school age settings for families in the UBC Vancouver community—from infancy through elementary school.
Since our inception, we have grown to become one of the largest and most well-respected child care providers in Canada, with 30 unique settings, more than 250 skilled, certified and dedicated educators and staff, and nearly 750 children enrolled—including roughly 200 children under three years old, 350 children three to five years old, and 200 school age children.
Operated by the University of British Columbia, we are part of Student Housing and Community Services, a unit in UBC’s Vice-President, Students portfolio.
Who we are
Get to know our senior educators, administrative staff and leadership team.
Pedagogical commitments
We cultivate innovative and transformative pedagogies to foster early childhood settings that are rich in possibilities for children, educators and families.
Indigeneity
Located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, our pedagogy is increasingly influenced by Indigenous ways of being, knowing, learning and teaching.
Our history
The brief history of UBC and UBC Child Care is overlaid on the rich history of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, which stretches back to time immemorial.
Before the university was established on these traditional, ancestral and unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm lands, which were also used at times by the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, the peninsula where UBC Vancouver is located was known as ʔəlqsən.
Before you read the history of UBC Child Care, we encourage you to:
UBC Child Care
In 1969, as UBC grew (after 44 years operating in its current location), students, faculty and staff in need of care and education for their young children formed a non-profit society and established the first UBC daycare.
Over the next two decades, the model for child care in British Columbia was pioneered at UBC, with the first infant and toddler settings opened here and staff becoming the first members of the Child Services Employees Union.
The operation was expanded to nine individual daycare settings and an office, all housed in renovated army huts.
In 1989, the UBC community donated land and over $3 million to replace these settings with five brand new duplexes.
In 1991, operation of the service was transferred to UBC and became UBC Child Care.
Continuously expanding the system to meet the demand for child care, by 2003 we offered 17 settings and supported over four hundred university-affiliated families.
In 2009, four new mixed-age settings and a new infant care setting opened, adding 108 new spaces.
In 2010, services expanded again with two settings located in the campus core area—one on Main Mall (Owl at the Barn) and one on West Mall (Caribou).
More school age settings were added in September 2014, when Norma Rose Point, a new elementary school opened on campus.
In 2015 a new child care setting, originally offering occasional care, opened in the AMS Nest, followed promptly by a new setting in Orchard Commons student residence.
Four additional settings opened in the Acadia Park neighbourhood in 2019.
Looking toward the future
In 2024, an additional child care setting will open in the new Brock Commons mixed-use development on Walter Gage Road.
We are currently pursuing the development of a purpose-built child care setting next to Orchard Commons student residence, which we hope to open in 2026.
Learn more about the UBC Vancouver Child Care Expansion Plan, which aims to create an inventory of approximately 1,200 individual spaces by 2041.