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School Readiness Funding

Information for early childhood education and care services on how funding is allocated and what it can be used for.

About School Readiness Funding

School Readiness Funding (SRF) is a permanent and ongoing part of the Victorian kindergarten funding model. The intent of School Readiness Funding is to address educational disadvantage, through building the capacity of educators and families to respond to children's learning and development in the 3 priority outcome areas:

  • Communication (language, literacy and numeracy)
  • Wellbeing (social, emotional and executive function)
  • Access, Inclusion and Participation.

School Readiness Funding supports 3-year-old and 4-year-old children in all early childhood education and care services delivering state-funded kindergarten programs in Victoria, including long day care.

From 2025, School Readiness Funding will move from an annual plan to a 2-year planning cycle. This will benefit services by providing greater predictability to be able to plan over a longer time, reducing the administrative requirements associated with the planning and implementation processes and ensuring timely intervention and support is provided.

Funding for your service

The amount of School Readiness Funding each service receives in a 2-year planning cycle is based on the level of need of the children enrolled at their service. This is informed by parental occupation and education data (also known as Student Family Occupation and Education [SFOE] data) because this is considered an accurate predictor of educational disadvantage. Similarly, SFOE data is used in schools to allocate 'needs-based' funding.

Funding for each service ranges between:

  • $2,000 for services with lower levels of need and/or small enrolment numbers
  • more than $400,000 for services with higher levels of need and large enrolment numbers.

It's important that the service accurately collect parents' occupation and education information each year as part of their enrolment process. Approved providers are required to enter this data into the Kindergarten Information Management System as part of the annual confirmation process that opens in January each year.

This information is necessary for the department to understand the educational needs of children and determine funding allocations for services each cycle.

Spend your service's funding

Every 2 years, approved providers are required to work with their Early Childhood Improvement Branch to develop a School Readiness Funding Plan for each of their services.

Plan for School Readiness Funding

SRF plans should use local and service-level data to determine the needs of each service. Approved providers are also required to complete pulse checks and end-of-cycle reporting to confirm how the School Readiness Funding for each of their kindergarten services has been spent.

The following documents help early childhood education and care services to successfully plan to spend and implement their School Readiness Funding. If further support is needed, please contact your local Early Childhood Improvement Branch.

Collect and use data for your SRF plan

The following data literacy tip-sheets have been developed by Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in consultation with the department.

Manage SRF plans in the Kindergarten Information Management System (KIMS)

The Kindergarten Information Management System (KIMS) enables services to view their SRF allocation, record and submit their SRF plan and support the ongoing planning process. For user guides, training and support on how to use this system visit Kindergarten Information Management System.

Services are required to track how they spend their SRF allocation throughout the cycle.

At the end of the planning cycle, services that have received School Readiness Funding will be required to submit an end-of-cycle report to the department. You will receive communication about this process in due course.

KIMS quick reference guides

The following quick reference guides are available to support services with their annual plans (up to and including 2024)

A number of changes are being implemented in KIMS to support SRF Policy changes for 2025 onwards, such as the move from an annual plan to a 2-year plan. Updated quick reference guides that reflect this will be available once KIMS is open for services to input their plans.

Extra support for services

Dedicated Early Childhood Improvement Branches have been established across Victoria to work directly with services to support the implementation of School Readiness Funding. They can provide advice, guidance and tailored support to assist services in the planning and reporting of SRF.

Find out how to contact your Early Childhood Improvement Branch.

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