The 2023-2024 Federal Budget has brought significant changes to the childcare sector, aimed at providing greater support to families and the early childhood education and care workforce. The changes include adjustments to the childcare subsidy, combining parental leave and dad and partner pay, and increased funding for the skills development of early childhood educators.

A less confusing, more concise approach was certainly necessary.

One of the major changes in the budget is the revision of the childcare subsidy. This was announced in the 'Responsible budget' of October 2022 and raised again as a highlight in the 2023-2024 budget statement.

The government has announced an increase in the maximum subsidy rate, which will benefit families with multiple children in care. Families with a combined income of up to $189,390 will receive a maximum subsidy rate of 90% of their childcare costs, up from 85% in the current system.

This will come as a relief to many parents who have struggled to afford childcare, particularly those on lower incomes.

The subsidy rate will decrease gradually for families with a combined income over $189,390, but they will still receive a considerable amount of financial assistance.

The government has also removed the annual cap on the subsidy, which previously limited the amount of assistance families could receive each year. This has been designed to benefit families with higher early education costs and those who use childcare services for longer periods of time.

Another considerable change is the combining of parental leave and dad and partner pay into a single payment, called the Parental Leave Pay. This new payment will provide up to 26 weeks of leave at the national minimum wage, which currently sits at $772.60 gross per week. The payment will be available to both parents, who can choose to share the leave between them or take it separately.

This will provide more flexibility for families, allowing them to choose how they share care. It also aims to encourage more fathers to take parental leave, traditionally taken by mothers.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers also announced that the budget will provide increased support for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce. He announced a $1.6 billion investment into the sector, which includes funding for professional development and training programs for educators.

With this investment, the government hopes to improve the quality of early childhood education and care, which we know is critical for children's development. By supporting the professional development of educators, the government hopes to attract and retain high-quality staff in the sector and promote better outcomes for children.

A win for a sector crippled by workforce shortages.

The funding will also support the implementation of the government's updated Quality Early Learning Framework, which aims to improve the consistency and quality of early childhood education and care across Australia.

Education Ministers endorsed the framework in December 2022 after an extensive consultation process stating that, "Throughout 2023, providers, services and educators can familiarise themselves with updated frameworks and begin incorporating them into program and practice. They will become mandatory in early 2024."

The changes to childcare in the federal budget 2023-2024 aim to provide greater support to families and the early childhood education and care workforce.

Dear Valued Centre Families,

A warm welcome to our Kidi Kingdom Coomera Autumn Newsletter for 2023.

Over the last three months we have welcomed some new families to our service and their children to start their early childhood development journey with us and to join our Kidi Kingdom Child Care family.

As I start the countdown towards welcoming my new baby girl in July, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the families that continue to choose and support Kidi Kingdom Coomera and entrusting us with the honour of caring for your little angels. Working with our Amazing families, Children and educators everyday has made my role as the Centre Manager the most rewarding aspect of my career. Miss Stephanette will be taking over my position as Centre Manager while I am away on Maternity Leave. Stephanette and I have worked alongside each other for over 8 years and share the same love and dedication towards Kidi Kingdom and the families we care for. We will ensure a smooth transition will take place to solidify the same high quality care and expectations of our service will be met during my time away.

We encourage our families to feel free to leave a 5 Star review and / or rating, you can do so by clicking the below icons to let everyone know about your excellent experience here at Kidi Kingdom Child Care Centre - Coomera. We love reading reviews from our families!

Please like our Facebook page and we always appreciate our loyal families helping our centre by sharing your positive experiences to the local community by writing a quick Google, CareForKids or Facebook review. Thank you to the families that have already taken the time to write a review.

Kind Regards, Sarah Piccolini Centre Manager	Click here to visit our pages at Facebook and Instagram

Welcome Valued Families.

We have had an exciting few months at our service and celebrated many special events ! We are very proud of our effort in enhancing our educational experiences across the classrooms. We have witnessed huge improvements throughout the service with all the educators implementing 3A practices into our Kidi Kingdom environment. Our Centre is buzzing with lots of stimulating conversations amongst children and educators, beautiful connections have flourished! This is due to our dedication in ensuring enriched caregiving is taking place and putting a language as a priority in the children's learning environment.

Additionally, we are in the process of preparing our Naturescape Program for 2023 to support the children's curiosity in the community around us. If you haven't already signed a permission form for your child to be involved, please see one of our Lead supervisors to help.

Kind Regards, Ms Stephanette Roaché Educational Program Leader.

Hello Families, and Welcome to the Autumn Newsletter.

Our Early Learners have been very busy over the last 3 months. We have some of the children who have started to crawl or walk, have built their confidence from walking to climbing and running, some have started to talk and others have built on their vocabulary by saying new words. The last few months we have focused on the children's interests in farm animals, balls, sorting shapes and have introduced cooking with the children.

Welcome Families to Junior Early Years,

Please sit tight and hold your breath as we dive into the sea of learning about our Junior Early Years children and what they have learned and experienced so far.

In March we learned about colours of happiness and joy while celebrating the festival of "Holi". At Kidi Kingdom we practise inclusion and value diversity. Our goal is to expose our children to as many festivals and celebrations around the world so they are involved in a flourishing multicultural society.

Followed by Holi, the children were thrilled to engage in Easter Celebrations. From bunny hops to our annual easter bonnet parade, how can you not be excited!

The children role-played as the easter bunny and found the eggs hidden around our beautiful gardens. They also did some fun egg splashing art with lots of colourful paint! Apart from that, we commemorated our soldiers on Anzac Day. The children made red-crafted poppy flowers by using red paper. They developed their fine motor skills by doing this activity.

Last but not least, going through these fantastic moments of each event, our little ones experienced and learned:

- supporting their friends in their own moments and cheering them up by giving cuddles and gentle pats

- sharing toys and taking turns

- adjusting to routines of the room and transitions harmoniously

- painting with rollers, brushes, stocks, and q- tips

- watering the plants and looking for bugs

- cherishing the blooming flowers and growing plants with peas, mint, and basil

- garden walks gave them a mindfulness experience. They love walking around it

- naming objects and things like flowers, cows, puppies, colours such as blue and red -recognising numbers 0-10

- introduction to alphabet recognition

Here are some links to follow for some fun activities to do at home with your children.

http://www.littlebluebirds.org.au

Kind Regards, Ms Puneet, Ms Harman, and Ms Mia.

Welcome Valued Families of School Care,

Our before and after school care children have been requesting support with topics and themes they have been learning at school. The children have been bringing in their homework to engage in a study group with their peers and educators. Some topics of interest amongst the children include ANZAC history, Weather and the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. It is amazing to see Children with such a positive and healthy disposition towards learning!

Kind regards, Ms Stephanette.

Dear Valued Families of the Senior Early Years Room,

We would like to welcome our new children into our Senior Early Years family: Zaliah and Noah. We hope you have enjoyed your time so far in the Senior Early Years Room, making new friends and learning new skills.

In the past few months we have been focusing on number and colour recognition, emotional skills as well as building our social skills through Yarning Group time.

These past few months we have also joined in celebrating St Patrick's Day, Easter, Anzac Day, Super Hero Day and Our Special Mother's Day morning tea. Throughout each celebration the children have enjoyed themed art, planned experiences and sensory activities to learn more about their community and diverse cultural backgrounds and how we celebrate different occasions as a society!

We have also been learning all about the "JUNGLE" nature environment. If you have any ideas or input that you would like to share for our new classroom theme, please see Miss Mayu or Miss Courtney.

We look forward to celebrating more special events and making more wonderful memories in our classroom!

Kind regards, Ms Mayu and Ms Courtney.

We would like to start by welcoming all our new families to the Kindergarten Classroom. It has been a busy few months with the children making new discoveries, accepting challenges, celebrating achievements and demonstrating a sense of belonging, independence and creativity.

The children were excited to be involved and contribute in turning our classroom into an under the sea adventure. The children have discovered new things about sea life, engaging in small world sensory play with an exciting ocean theme and created some beautiful art pieces of sharks, rainbow fish, jellyfish and dolphins to display proudly around the classroom!

A few of the memorable events we have celebrated in Pre-prep include Harmony week, Easter, Superhero Day, ANZAC and Nature Week. The children have enjoyed learning new things about the world around them and the community we are involved in.

Kind Regards, Ms Rebecca and Ms Simone.