Kindergarten Attendance Policy by Kris turra

LOOKOUT Education Support Centres

turrakris — 2025-03-12 21:36:44 UTC

Access and participation support provided to the team around children in Out-of-Home Care attending kindergarten via the regional LOOKOUT Early Childhood Learning Advisor (ECLA) workforce. E.g ECEC service OoHC consultations, PSG/Care Team Meetings attendance, contact from ACCO/CSO/CPP

School Readiness Funding

2025-03-12 22:36:41 UTC

one of the three pillars of school readiness funding is "access and inclusion". we have on average 28% of SRF menu supports that are directed to access and inclusion.

SRF - Transport

2025-03-12 22:38:08 UTC

The SRF program has a policy on transport. Allocating funds to local buses and sometimes taxis to get vulnerable/at risk children to kindergarten.

Floor staff

2025-03-12 22:42:35 UTC

Talk to the people who know the "why" behind why children aren't attending kindergarten - these are the ones that know the family/dynamics/issues - the kindergarten staff/educators/directors - specific to services. Perhaps ECIBs could be a first point of call in establishing these relationships. A survey may be useful, however beware that kindergarten services are "at capacity" with reporting requests from central. Could this info gathering be included in the annual census questions for example? or some other already existent reporting mechanism?

cultural celebrations/issues etc

2025-03-12 22:45:24 UTC

Just to be aware of cultural celebrations of different cultures may mean that groups of kids are away for extended time periods. perhaps ramadan, diwali etc.

Also to understand that perhaps if a family member (grandparent) passes, there may be some cultural observances resulting in absence that may not be 'usual' practice in western culture?

arrivals

2025-03-12 22:46:30 UTC

what data is captured? is the data enough to support the policy?

KIS, FSP, KIS SEP and PSFO

2025-03-12 23:33:30 UTC

They allow children to be supported and included in kindergarten

Participation Strategy and COMPACT

turrakris — 2025-03-12 23:33:38 UTC

Targets

turrakris — 2025-03-12 23:34:17 UTC

The appropriateness of having a target

ESK (Early Start Kindergarten) Attendance Tracker

samhalford2 — 2025-03-12 23:35:11 UTC

The ESK Attendance tracker helps us better understand the effectiveness of the ESK program, and the barriers to kindergarten attendance that the priority cohorts that are in ESK may face

Strength based approach

turrakris — 2025-03-12 23:35:49 UTC

Gentle influence through relationships with families and carers, how we improve attendance honouring context and barriers which may need support. Quality and inclusiveness of the service

KIS data

2025-03-12 23:36:09 UTC

KIS data supports the assumption that our program has a positive impact on attendance

2025-03-12 23:36:10 UTC

Research says children with additional needs often have lower attendance rates.

Disability Inclusion Research is aiming to support the workforce to build their skills and knowledge in working with children additional needs. The hypothesis is that by doing this children with additional needs will be able to participate in kinder more.

Children with very complex medical needs

2025-03-12 23:36:52 UTC

Children we support with CMN or pallative care that without our program would be unable to attend kinder and participate

Commonwealth

turrakris — 2025-03-12 23:37:03 UTC

Engaging with the commonwealth to learn from their data collection, learnings and policy. Whether the service has used the information for reflective practice

KKS (Koorie Kids Shine)

2025-03-12 23:37:59 UTC

Koorie Kids Shine promotes participation in kinder for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

2025-03-12 23:38:00 UTC

Concerns with not recording drop off and leaving times as there are reports of children with additional needs being asked to leave early or not participate in activities (e.g. bush kinder/ excursions)

AEL

2025-03-12 23:38:02 UTC

In home support with families which includes family visits and financial support to purchase items that kids might need to attend kinder including lunch boxes etc. They also support filling out forms and work with services to provide training for the ECE staff on how to support the participation of the children.

Usage of Attendance Data

samhalford2 — 2025-03-12 23:38:31 UTC

The branch and department as a whole should begin to think about how we can best use the attendance data once we have access to it. Can it be used to improve policy, to strengthen and evaluate programs.

Safe Haven

2025-03-12 23:38:53 UTC

Program has a multidisciplinary leadership team that provides extensive support to engage and support families to attend (i.e. permanent family service practitioner, infant mental health specialist). Sites report that a significant amount of centre time, capability and resources is needed to develop relationships with families and help them overcome challenges to attendance (e.g. getting a doctor's note for CCS).

Building capacity of kinder teachers

2025-03-12 23:39:23 UTC

our KIS and PSFO programs help build the capacity and knowledge of ECTs which builds confidence. This can allow for parents who have children with additional needs or cmn to send there children for additional hours

Focus on positive relationships with parents that need extra support

2025-03-12 23:40:24 UTC

Universal settings may not have the capability to develop positive relationships with families and be non-judgemental when there are attendance challenges, or families may fear engaging with services if they fear judgement, or reprisals (e.e.g reports to child protection)

ESK

2025-03-12 23:40:41 UTC

Grant should be used flexibly to support services to include children from priority cohorts. This is during the 3 year old kinder year.

Encourage everyone to contribute to it

2025-03-12 23:42:02 UTC

encourage engagement from everyone

AEL and Safe Haven

2025-03-12 23:42:18 UTC

AEL Facilitators and Safe Haven Leadership teams in Safe Haven site.

no one size fits all

2025-03-12 23:43:10 UTC

attendance for priority cohorts will be different from attendance of typical children i.e children with complex medical conditions/needs will have varying attendance

Transport

2025-03-12 23:44:11 UTC

Look at transport for areas that have lots of children with vulnerabilities. Some of the larger ACCOs used to be funded by the Commonwealth for a bus to go and pick up children from their houses and take them to ECEC. This pick up and drop off service is key in some areas to attendance, and supporting families with just getting them there.

Role of ECIBs via SRF

2025-03-12 23:45:44 UTC

Given ECIB's role in supporting services with their SRF planning/approval, it might be helpful for ECIBs to be across attendance data to bring menu items to a service's attendance.

Data on children sent home

2025-03-13 01:45:09 UTC

I wonder if we can also capture data on when children are sent home early. This would be helpful when looking at the inclusion of children with additional needs. It is a great first step to track attendance as a yes/no but is it then also possible to track children who are sent home early as a yes/no? Acknowledging there are problems with this if we are relying on the service to self-report.