Evidence shows that early childhood education programs must be high quality to achieve a significant, long-lasting impact on children. The way programs are structured contributes to this quality, as well as children’s learning, development and wellbeing outcomes.
When your service is planning program model changes as you start to deliver increased hours of Pre-Prep, continue to think about teaching and learning at your service how you do now, with the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) as your guide.
The Practice Principles in the VEYLDF describe the best ways to work together, and with children and families, to facilitate learning and development. An important resource for planning changes and monitoring their impact will be your Quality Improvement Plan (QIP).
There are different ways services can structure programs to deliver additional hours for children from priority cohorts. Remember, children from a priority cohort do not need to be placed in the same group and can access their Pre-Prep hours in more than one group at a single service, including 4-year-old groups, multi-age — and where appropriate — 3-year-old groups.
Consider what will work best for the children and families that use your service and your local community, alongside your workforce and the requirements of your service type.
You can use the ‘What to consider’ section to assist your service consider how effective a program model may be. The Example scenario also shows how a service may apply these considerations.
While some services will have one or more children from a priority cohort accessing Pre-Prep from 2026, this won’t be the case for all services. It is useful for services, no matter how many enrolments of children from a priority cohort are expected, to familiarise themselves with the priority group rollouts and what to consider.
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