School Readiness Funding

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

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

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

It is important that Elles Belles Early Learning accurately collect parents’ occupation and education information each year, as part of the enrolment process, to which we are required to enter this into the Kindergarten Information Management system as part of annual confirmation in August each year. This information is necessary for the Department to understand the educational needs of children and services across Victoria, and determine how funding will be allocated in future years.