The Kindergarten Teaching Excellence Approach

The approach at a glance

The Kindergarten Teaching Excellence Approach is a professional learning system. It provides access to:

online learning
coaching/mentoring
events
resources.

These supports are designed to help improve early childhood teaching.

The approach is part of the Best Start, Best Life reforms. It helps use the increased kindergarten hours well by:

strengthening teaching practice
supporting high-quality learning.

Why early childhood education matters

Evidence shows that children learn and develop best in high-quality early childhood education.

Children’s brains are most able to grow and change from birth to 5 years old. This ability decreases as children get older.

If children do not meet key developmental milestones, later learning can be harder. Rich interactions in warm, respectful and safe settings also help children build strong foundations for learning throughout their lives.

Early child sensitivity to different learning types

The chart shows how children’s sensitivity to different types of learning changes from the pre-school years into the school years.
The horizontal axis represents age, from birth to around 8 years. The chart is divided into two sections: “Pre-school years” on the left and “School years” on the right. The vertical axis represents the level of sensitivity, from low at the bottom to high at the top.
There are several coloured lines, each representing a different type of learning:
- Vision rises very early, peaks in infancy, and then declines sharply, becoming very low by the school years.
- Hearing also rises very early, peaks in infancy, and drops steeply before school age.
- Emotional control follows a similar pattern, with high sensitivity in the early years and a strong decline by the school years.
- Habitual ways of responding peaks in the early years and then drops significantly before and during the school years.
- Language rises quickly in infancy, stays high through the early years, and then gradually declines, though it remains moderately sensitive into the school years.
- Symbols increases later than language, peaks around the pre-school period, and then declines more gradually into the school years.
- Peer social skills rises later than most other learning types, peaking around the transition from pre-school to school, and then declines slowly.
- Second language sensitivity rises early, remains high across much of the pre-school period, and then declines steadily through the school years.
Overall, the chart suggests that the early years, especially before school, are the period of greatest sensitivity for many kinds of learning, with different abilities peaking at different times.
Download chart image

What quality teaching looks like

Evidence shows that children learn best when teachers combine teaching with intentional play.

The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) outlines an integrated approach to teaching and learning. It is also known as ‘intentional teaching’. You can think of this approach as a triple helix.

Triple helix of learning approaches

Diagram showing guided play and learning on a continuum between adult-initiated, child-directed learning and child-initiated, adult-guided learning, with three types of intentional interactions below.

Intentional interactions

Within guided play and learning, there are 3 types of intentional interactions:

Child-directed. The child leads the activity, and the adult guides learning through their ideas, questions and actions
Collaborative. The child and adult learn together, with each taking a turn to lead.
Educator-initiated. The adult starts the activity, and the child guides it through their choices and actions.

Intentional interactions are central to the new Kindergarten Teaching Excellence Approach.

Structural quality and process quality

High-quality early childhood education depends on 2 things:

structural quality
process quality.

Child safety underpins both structural quality and process quality.

Structural quality

Structural quality is how a service is set up. It creates the conditions for quality learning.

Examples include:

buildings
resources
staff ratios
qualifications.

The National Quality Framework (NQF) has helped build and strengthen structural quality.

Process quality

Process quality is how children experience these conditions each day.

Examples include:

interactions
relationships
leadership
teaching practice
pedagogical skills
subject matter knowledge.

The Kindergarten Teaching Excellence Approach places more focus on process quality.

This reflects strong research evidence, including the E4Kids study and research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), showing that process quality is strongly linked to better child outcomes.

Why we introduced this approach

The Best Start, Best Life Workforce Strategy includes a commitment to support teachers and educators to embed quality practice as kindergarten hours increase.

The approach delivers on this commitment. It also responds to feedback from kindergarten teaching teams across Victoria.

The sector asked for professional learning that is:

high-quality
on-demand
tailored
relevant to career stage and role.

The approach is designed to meet that need.

Download the brochure

Introducing the Kindergarten Teaching Excellence Approach

PDF 2.39 MB

Updated 24 Aug 2026

Early childhood education and care

Updated 24 August 2026