Elles Belles Early Learning has been approved for School Readiness Funding, a permanent and ongoing component of the Victorian kindergarten funding model. The School Readiness Funding supports programmes that build the capacity of kindergarten services, educators, and families to enhance children’s learning and developmental outcomes further.

Elles Belles Early Learning will submit an annual School Readiness Funding Plan for each of our managed services. These annual plans will draw on local and service-level data to determine the needs of each service, with data sourced from the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC).

A mid-year review and end-of-year acquittal will be submitted for each service annually, confirming how School Readiness Funding has been utilised. The amount of School Readiness Funding each service receives is based on the level of need of the children enrolled at the service. This is informed by parental occupation and education data (Student Family Occupation and Education data or SFOE), as this data is considered an accurate predictor of educational disadvantage. Parental occupation and education data is similarly used in schools to allocate ‘needs-based’ funding.

It is crucial for Elles Belles Early Learning to accurately collect parents’ occupation and education information each year as part of the enrolment process. We are required to enter this information into the Kindergarten Information Management system as part of the annual confirmation in August each year. This information is essential for the Department to understand the educational needs of children and services across Victoria and to determine future funding allocations.