Dear colleagues
Welcome to 2025!
I hope you all had a happy, refreshing festive season, and that you were able to enjoy a more relaxed pace over summer. I also hope that the 2025 kinder year, which kicked off last week, has started well, and you, your colleagues and the children and families at your services are all feeling positive about the year ahead.
There’s a lot to take in during the start-of-kinder rush, but it’s worth pointing out some important context about where we start this year.
In 2025, more than 145,000 children and families will be benefiting from attending free Three and Four-Year-Old Kindergarten programs. That’s the equivalent of filling up one-and-a-half MCGs!
We’ve now formally started our Pre-Prep roll-out in the local government areas of Ararat, Gannawarra, Hindmarsh, Murrindindi, Northern Grampians and Yarriambiack. This means Four-Year-Old Kindergarten programs in these areas are now offering up to 30 hours of play-based learning to local families each week. I’d like to congratulate services in these areas on this achievement, and to pass on my sincere thanks to everyone who has worked so diligently to bring this reform into reality. We know this is a change that will mean more time for children to get to know teachers and educators, more time to develop social and emotional skills, and deeper learning opportunities.
A big focus for us at the department this year will be to support services to prepare ahead of the next phase of this reform, with Pre-Prep being rolled out to priority families across the state, as well as to a further 12 local government areas (LGAs) in 2026. Those who will be able to access Pre-Prep in 2026 include Aboriginal families, families from a refugee or asylum seeker background and families known to child protection. Families in these LGAs will also be able to access Pre-Prep next year:
- Benalla Rural City
- Buloke Shire
- Corangamite Shire
- East Gippsland Shire
- Horsham Rural City
- Loddon Shire
- Mansfield Shire
- Mitchell Shire
- Pyrenees Shire
- Strathbogie Shire
- Wangaratta Rural City
- Wodonga Rural City.
In the lead-up to enrolments opening in the coming months, we’ll be concentrating on bringing you the resources and support to help you get in the best possible place to deliver these changes.
The Three-Year-Old Kindergarten roll-out also continues this year, and it builds on last year’s incredible achievement of more than 80 per cent of funded kindergarten services delivering 10 to 15 hours of play-based learning each week.
Twenty new kindergartens will open at government schools this year, providing more than 2,600 new kindergarten places for Victorian children.
Across the state, we've also helped deliver another 45 new or expanded kindergartens, which will open this year on council sites and at non-government schools.
We also welcome the first 4 Early Learning Victoria centres, which have just opened in Murtoa, Sunshine, Fawkner and Eaglehawk. These are the first of the Victorian Government’s 50 early learning and childcare centres, and we’ll have more news to share on this front as the year progresses.
To help you and your teams develop and expand on your skills in the coming year, we'll have a range of professional development opportunities available, some of which you can read more about in this edition.
There’s the Victorian Educational Leadership Program, the Best Start, Best Life Leadership Conference in March, coaching courses for both early career and experienced professionals, along with the important Beyond Blue Be You initiative to support your mental health and wellbeing.
I’m especially looking forward to next month’s conference, and to hearing from you and your colleagues about how we can support you. I greatly value the feedback we get, whether through sector events or through your regular engagement with our Early Childhood Improvement Branches.
Finally, I’d be very grateful if you could share Early Childhood Update with your colleagues at all levels, and, even better, encourage them to sign up themselves.
Wishing you all the best for the year ahead.
Bronwen FitzGerald
Deputy Secretary
Early Childhood Education
Updated