Early Childhood Update - September 2024

Dear colleagues

This edition of Early Childhood Update comes out on Early Childhood Educators’ Day – a day to celebrate the incredible contribution Victoria’s early childhood educators make to the learning and development of Victorian children.

In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, from all of us at the department, thank you for everything you do to give Victorian children the best start in their education journey.

This recognition also reflects the thoughts of parents, carers and other community leaders, who often express their deep respect and gratitude for your professionalism, expertise and commitment to supporting children and families.

We hope you have a fantastic day and would appreciate if you can please share this message of thanks to your colleagues throughout your professional networks.

This month’s edition of Early Childhood Update once again provides a range of information, resources and professional development opportunities to support you in your roles. Refer to these articles to:

• learn about the School Saving Bonus for children transitioning to school
• register for the Beginning Teachers Conference
• complete Transition Learning and Development Statements
• access Child Link and learn about child safety
• apply for provisionally registered teacher grants
• transition to the Arrival data system.

Pre-Prep starts in 6 local government areas next year. Eligible services are continuing to prepare for this exciting year using the department’s interim operational policy and funding settings to guide their work.

Over the coming weeks, we will be releasing operational policy settings that will apply from 2026. Please keep an eye out for those communications too, as they will be relevant for most services across the state. Services are encouraged to contact their local Early Childhood Improvement Branch if they have any questions.

Thank you once again for the life-changing work you do for Victoria’s children and families.

Bronwen FitzGerald
Deputy Secretary
Early Childhood Education

The School Saving Bonus will provide $400 in support for Victorian school-aged students in Term 4, 2024 for use on 2025 school costs. This includes parents and carers of children in Four-Year-Old Kindergarten who are enrolled to start school in Term 1, 2025.

Parents and carers will receive an email from the Department of Education with their $400 School Saving Bonus in November 2024. Families will be able to choose how they spend the $400 bonus – on school activities, or school uniforms and textbooks, or a mixture of all 3.

Actions for parents and carers

To receive the School Saving Bonus, parents and carers of children who are attending a Victorian government school in 2025 are required to do the following by Friday 18 October 2024:

• complete enrolment: families will need to enroll children to start Prep in 2025. For more information, please direct families to Enrolling in School
• check contact information: families must ensure their phone number and email address are up to date with the school. To do this, they should contact the school directly.

Who receives the School Saving Bonus

The School Saving Bonus is available for parents and carers of each Victorian government school student from Prep to Year 12 in 2025, except for full-fee international students, home-schooled students, and TAFE students.

Non-government school students receiving the means-tested Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund in 2024 are eligible for additional support through the School Saving Bonus.

Resources and actions to share with parents

If you have families attending your service with a child transitioning to Prep in 2025, please download and distribute the parent and carer newsletter information sheet so parents can enrol and be eligible for this financial support.

This information sheet contains key actions to help ensure parents and carers receive the School Saving Bonus. Translated parent and carer resources will also be available within the next few weeks.

Updates from the Premier and Minister for Education

To hear more about the School Saving Bonus, download and share with parents and carers the School Saving Bonus video and letter from the Premier and Minister for Education, available on the website.

Thank you in advance for your support of the School Saving Bonus.

Find out more

For more information, refer to the School Saving Bonus website.

For further enquiries, please contact the department by email: school.saving.bonus@education.vic.gov.au

If you’re a teacher at the start of your career looking to strengthen your professional practice and build professional networks, take part in the upcoming Beginning Teacher Conferences (BTC). Likewise, if you know someone in that position, please share this information.

These online and in-person conferences are specifically tailored for teachers in their first year and those working in funded kindergarten programs who are expected to graduate within the next 12 months.

The upcoming BTC Series 3 conferences will feature expert evidence-based presentations focusing on building and nurturing your professional identity and skills.

You'll also get the chance to:

• explore how to engage in meaningful conversations with families to support inclusion through trauma-informed strategies
• unpack relevant problems of practice through deep-dive discussions with peers.

So, join us for BTC Series 3 from 9 am to 3 pm on:

• Thursday 12 September 2024 (online)
• Thursday 31 October 2024 (in-person at the Victorian Teaching Academy, 41 St Andrews Place, East Melbourne)

Visit the conference series website to register.

Find out more

For more information, refer to Beginning Teachers Conferences.

For further enquiries, contact the Early Years Workforce by email: early.years.workforce@education.vic.gov.au

All children transitioning to school must have a completed Transition Learning and Development Statement (TLDS) by Friday 20 December 2024.

Early childhood teachers in funded kindergarten programs are best placed to manage TLDS for children in their programs. However, if a child is also going to other services such as long day care, family daycare, or occasional care, the educators in those services, as well as families, may have information to contribute.

Completing a TLDS for each enrolled child is a kindergarten funding requirement.

Funding and support

A range of resources, tip sheets and on-demand professional learning is available to all kindergarten teachers completing a TLDS at Complete an online Transition Learning and Development Statement.

Kindergarten service providers also receive a funding contribution for support releasing early childhood teachers to write TLDS.

There is no application process to receive this funding. The department automatically pays the funding contribution to approved providers in Term 3, 2024. All funds should be expended annually by the end of Term 4.

Online tool is back

The online TLDS tool reopened on Monday 15 July 2024.

Services should have received new log in credentials through their registered service email address (as listed on NQAITS) through an email from: insight@linkit.com

If you have not received your new log in credentials, please contact our helpdesk partner, the State Library of Victoria (SLV), using the details below.

Find out more

For more information about the Online TLDS tool, including how to write a TLDS, refer to Complete an online Transition Learning and Development Statement.

For helpdesk support, including login information and training for how to use the tool, please contact SLV. You can contact the SLV helpdesk from Monday to Friday, between 9 am and 5 pm, by:

• phone: 03 8664 7001 or toll free: 1800 629 835
• email: support@kindergarten.vic.gov.au

For other enquiries, contact the department by email: early.years.transition@education.vic.gov.au

We strongly encourage all services delivering Victorian Government-funded kindergarten programs to access Child Link.

Child Link is a digital tool that displays information about a child to key professionals who have responsibility for child wellbeing and safety, and is a key enabler for information sharing.

Services can nominate up to 3 Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registered teachers to become Child Link Users.

To become a Child Link User, all teachers must first complete a 2.5-hour Information Sharing and Child Link training session. Funding is available to support early childhood teachers to attend training.

To request access to Child Link, contact the Child Link Implementation team by email: childlink@education.vic.gov.au

About Child Link

Child Link shows limited but critical information, including a child’s participation in early childhood services and schools, to help you to:

• make more informed decisions about the wellbeing, safety, and support needs of a child in your service
• better identify risks and vulnerabilities and provide the necessary support to prevent any escalation of harm
• encourage cross-service collaboration to facilitate more holistic support around a child
• provide support earlier by linking together information from across services
• facilitate smoother transitions between early childhood services and schools by responding to gaps in participation.

Find out more

For further enquiries, contact the Child Link Implementation team by email: childlink@education.vic.gov.au

New training and resources are available to help early childhood services continue to implement information sharing and the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) framework.

The information sharing schemes and the MARAM framework enable early childhood services to share information to promote the wellbeing and safety of children and identify and respond to family violence.

Early childhood services must respond to information sharing requests and use MARAM tools and processes to identify and respond to family violence.

MARAM training

To help meet your service’s legislated MARAM responsibilities, service leaders should identify 2 to 3 MARAM nominated staff who will be responsible for family violence screening, safety planning and making referrals and reports.

Please support MARAM nominated staff to attend new training to understand and complete your service’s MARAM responsibilities.

Training details

Date: training sessions are available from October 2024 to June 2026
Time: 4 hours
Platform: face-to-face and online options are available
Cost: free.

Training hours count towards professional learning for Victorian Institute of Teaching registration.

Casual relief teacher reimbursement is available, with instructions to claim reimbursement available upon training registration.

For more information and to register, refer to Non-accredited MARAM training.

New guidance and tools

To help services embed information sharing and MARAM, we have also updated the Information Sharing and Family Violence Reforms: Guidance and Tools.

These resources respond to feedback from stakeholders to simplify guidance and support services to share information confidently, safely and appropriately, improving children’s wellbeing and safety.

The resources will also support services to identify and respond to family violence in a safe and consistent way. Resources include:

• new chapters to help service leaders, all staff, and nominated staff meet their service’s legislated MARAM responsibilities
• new downloadable templates and tools that help all staff identify family violence, and nominated service staff to screen for family violence and make basic safety plans
• revised chapters and tools on implementing the information sharing schemes.

The tools support the work early childhood staff already do to respond to family violence.

Find out more

For more information, refer to Information sharing training.

For further enquiries, contact the department’s Victorian Child Information Sharing division by email: cisandfvis@education.vic.gov.au

Approved providers can now apply for funding of $2,872 (excluding GST) per eligible provisionally registered teacher (PRT) to support them in progressing to full registration with the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT).

Moving to full registration is an important step for early career early childhood teachers and demonstrates their proficiency against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

Applications for this round close at 5 pm on Friday 20 September 2024.

How to apply

Applications must be submitted through the PRT Grants Program portal by an authorised representative of the approved provider.

Applicants must have discussed the application with the PRT on whose behalf they are applying for funding and must have provided the PRT with the Privacy Statement. This is available in the PRT Grants Program portal 2024-25 PRT Grants Program Guidelines.

The guidelines also outline how applications will be prioritised if the number of eligible applications exceeds the number of grants available.

Find out more

For more information, refer to Early Childhood Provisionally Registered Teacher (PRT) Grants Program.

For further enquiries, contact the department by email: prt.grants.program@education.vic.gov.au

In last month’s Early Childhood Update, we explained that Arrival will gradually replace KIMS (the Kindergarten Information Management System) as the new system for data reporting and the collection of attendance data.

Arrival will be introduced from January 2025 and will make it easier for Victorian government-funded kindergarten services to report data.

To help services transition to the purpose-built system, we’ve set up a dedicated Arrival webpage.

The webpage provides the latest information about Arrival, including:

• how to prepare for Arrival
• when and how you’ll start using the system
• how to access support and guidance materials and information sessions.

We’ll continue to keep you informed about Arrival through direct mail and Early Childhood Update, and encourage you to access the Arrival webpage at any time for the latest updates and support materials.

You can also contact the department’s Arrival Implementation team with any questions or support needs. Please refer to the team’s contact details below.

Find out more

For more information, refer to the Arrival webpage.

For further enquiries, contact our Arrival Implementation team by email: arrival.implementation@education.vic.gov.au