Arrival: Information for sessional services

Yes. From 2025, all services will be required to use Arrival to enter their program and enrolment information.

Arrival will also include functionality that will enable sessional services to collect and report attendance data in a phased approach in 2025 (see further information under Attendance Data Collection below).

In 2025, funding will continue to be generated and paid via KIMS as normal.

KIMS will also remain in use in 2025 for the following purposes:

• Funding reports viewed and exported
• SRF planning and acquittals
• access to second year declarations submitted in 2024
• Kindergarten Inclusion Support (KIS) and Preschool Field Officer (PSFO) reporting
• Parental leave applications
• Rural Travel Allowance applications
• EYM grant applications.

From 2026, it is expected that all KIMS functions will be managed through Arrival. 

Yes. Both systems will be operating in parallel in 2025 and users will need separate logins while this is the case.

Services and Users will be supported with further information, training and guidance in readiness for transitioning to the new system. Staff who will need user access to Arrival will need an individual email address with a service/provider-based domain and password to log in to the system from 2025. (See below for more information regarding system compliant emails).

The department is strengthening user access requirements to meet best practice standards in information security. In preparation for Arrival, users will require an individual email address with a service or provider-based domain (e.g.tilly.smith@ examplekinder.com.au) by November 2024.

Community-based service providers will be supported to set up compliant emails through the department’s free Kindergarten IT program (operated by the State Library on behalf of the department).

Private providers can access publicly available support to register an email domain and set up a business email account.

• How to set up your own business email account | Business Victoria
• Domain Registrar | Education Services Australia

Instructions on how to identify and update non-compliant email addresses in KIMS are available for community-based providers and private providers.

Teacher and educator data will not be transferred from KIMS to Arrival. The department is exploring ways to make the transfer of data between KIMS and Arrival easier for service providers.

Arrival will use a role-based access model with different levels of user access. This will provide organisations with control over who can access different types of information at a service level and across the organisation.

The different roles in Arrival will include:

• service provider administrator
• service administrator
• service provider user
• service user.

The Service Provider Administrator will be able to create and update users’ accounts, including changing their level of access.

At a service-level, the Service Administrator will also be able to create and update users’ email accounts, including their level of access.

There will be some additional information collected through Arrival in 2025 which will be used to inform the department’s planning and support for services, teachers and educators. The additional information that needs to be reported will be different based on service type.

New information to be reported by all services:

Child-level information:

• Middle name (not mandatory)
• Preferred name (not mandatory).

New teacher and educator related questions:

• Country of birth (not mandatory for 2025)
• Main language spoken at home (not mandatory for 2025).

Additional or updated information about teacher and educator qualifications:

• Length of early childhood teacher qualification
• Type of early childhood qualification currently completing (not mandatory)
• Expected year of completion of educator early childhood qualification (not mandatory).

New service-related information:

• Hours the service is operationally unavailable (e.g. planning days)
• Total number of rooms at the service used for kindergarten program delivery (not mandatory).

New information to be reported by sessional services using Arrival to record attendance data:

For each parent or guardian that will be dropping off or picking up the child:

• Parent or guardian’s first name, middle name, and last name
• Parent or guardian’s phone number
• Parent or guardian’s relationship to the child.

Where someone other than the parent or guardian will be dropping off or picking up the child:

• Authorised nominee’s first name, middle name, and last name
• Authorised nominee’s phone number.

The information collected from families will be entered into Arrival in the same way as enrolment information is currently entered into KIMS.

You will receive further information about the new system via email, along with links to guidance materials and resources on the Arrival webpage. The department will have a range of resources available closer to the introduction of the system including training materials and a helpdesk.

The department is committed to data security and confidentiality. As with current identifiable child level data, there will be strict controls on the management, access to and transmission of this data to prevent any unauthorised access.

All information will be handled in accordance with the Department of Education Privacy Policy and relevant privacy legislation including the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic).

Annual confirmation will be completed in Arrival.

Annual confirmation dates for 2025 have not yet been set but are likely to be undertaken in the usual timeframes. However, if you do have concerns about meeting the deadline closer to the time please do get in touch with your local Early Childhood Improvement Branch.

Services will be able to enter 2025 enrolment data into Arrival from January 2025.

Service providers are reminded not to enter 2025 enrolments into KIMS, as this data will not be migrated to Arrival.

A bulk upload functionality will be available to support this process.

Yes, Arrival will be able to identify duplicate enrolments.

No enrolment data will be migrated from KIMS to Arrival.

Service providers will be required to enter all Three-Year-Old and Four-Year-Old Kindergarten enrolment data into Arrival in 2025. A bulk upload functionality will be available to support this process.

In subsequent years, Three-Year-Old Kindergarten enrolments can be moved to the following year (Four-Year-Old Kindergarten) in Arrival.

Yes. There will be a bulk upload function available for enrolment data.

Services already collect attendance data to inform local planning and to meet National Law requirements.

As part of the Preschool Reform Agreement, all states and territories have committed to collect attendance data from sessional kindergarten services (services that don’t already report attendance data to the Australian Government via the Child Care Subsidy System).

The attendance data insights gained through Arrival will help drive our collective efforts to support kindergarten attendance, so that all Victorian children receive the full learning and developmental benefits of a quality early childhood education. 

The way daily attendance is reported in Arrival will depend on how attendance is currently recorded at your service/s.

Services that use paper-based records:

Arrival will provide services that currently use paper-based records with digital sign in and sign out capability. This will make the sign in sign out process easier for families and tracking and reporting attendance easier for services.

We will work closely with services currently using paper-based methods, including consideration of any local needs in using the new Arrival system to record daily attendance data.

Training and guidance materials will be available to support services using digital sign in and sign out for the first time in 2025. Ongoing helpdesk support will also be available.

Services that already use digital sign in sign out software for attendance:

Many sessional services are already using sign in sign out software. 

The department has established an integration solution for third-party software. We are commencing work with the most commonly used software providers and will work with all third-party software providers that express an interest to integrate with Arrival.

There is no requirement for sessional services to use Arrival to capture attendance data from January 2025. The initial focus will be on transitioning to the new system for enrolment data input.

We are taking a staged approach to allow time to provide the necessary guidance and support to all sessional services.

The way daily attendance is reported in Arrival will depend on how attendance is currently captured at your service/s.

Services that currently use paper-based records:

Services currently using paper-based methods will continue using their existing process for capturing attendance at the start of the year.

There will be an opportunity for a select number of services using paper-based methods to start using the new attendance functionality earlier in the year. Please get in touch at arrival.implementation@education.vic.gov.au if you would like to be involved.

Following Annual Confirmation, the department will transition services using paper-based methods to the Arrival digital solution, taking the needs of individual providers and services into consideration. This will happen over several months, with further details on timing to follow early next year. We will work closely with services currently using paper-based methods in using the new Arrival system to record daily attendance data.

Services that already use digital sign in sign out software for attendance:

The department has established an integration solution for third-party software. We are commencing work with the most commonly used software providers and will work with all third-party software providers that express an interest to integrate with Arrival.

The collection of attendance data from services using existing digital software will depend on the timing of integration with each software provider.

Attendance data may be collected from the start of the year for some services and may commence later in the year for others. Once the integration between software providers and Arrival has been set up, data collection will be an automatic process and there will be no action required by service providers.

The department is currently finalising device solutions for services, and further information will be available soon. Arrival will provide services that currently use paper-based records with digital sign in and sign out capability. Families using Arrival to capture attendance will be able to sign in and out on a device (tablet). This will make the sign in sign out process easier for families and tracking and reporting attendance easier for services.

Long day care services that already provide attendance data to the Australian Government via the Child Care Subsidy System (CCSS), will not be required to provide attendance data through Arrival. Victorian attendance data collected via CCSS, together with the sessional attendance data from Arrival will form a statewide attendance data set for national reporting.

Yes, digital attendance collection through Arrival will be designed to collect the information required in line with National Law requirements.

No. Kindergarten funding is not tied to the collection and reporting of attendance information.

Further advice about whether the ESK tracker will be required in 2025 will be available soon.

The Annual Kindergarten Census will continue as normal for 2025.