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.

Welcome Valued Present and Future Families of Kidi Kingdom Child Care - Pimpama.

How exciting to be sharing our first Newsletter of 2023 with you all. I would personally like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing Kidi Kingdom as your preferred childcare provider. I have had a wonderful experience meeting all our new families, children and team of superstar educators.

As the cooler months and illness season is approaching please be advised we are taking our families, your children and our educators' health seriously. Please be advised temperature checks will be conducted during this season to keep everyone all healthy and happy. This is one of the points of difference at Kidi Kingdom Child Care and why families choose us.

Thank you to our families for your patience whilst our Child Care Subsidy claim was in process and has now been approved. If you have any questions regarding CCS please ask or send me an email.

We wish you all a memorable journey, we are so grateful to have you part of the first families to join us in the opening of our brand new Kidi Kingdom Child Care Centre @ Pimpama.

Please refer any family and friends to us, we appreciate all the referrals and recommendations we have received so far.

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 or Facebook review. Thank you for the families that have already taken to the time to write a review.

Kind Regards, Aprill Hall Centre Manager   Jessica Hines Assistant Centre Manager	Click here to visit our pages at Facebook and Instagram

Hello Everyone and Welcome to all the families who have joined Kidi Kingdom Child Care - Pimpama.

My name is Nadine and I am your Educational Leader for the Centre. I will be ensuring every classroom meets the highest quality standards with their educational documentation. I am in the process of reviewing the weekly program and plan and Hubhello to support educators in their educational practices.

I am here to support the educators to ensure their programming documentation relating to your child's development is of high standard and your child is receiving the best possible care that they deserve and are developing positively. If you have any questions I am more than happy to help you and answer any questions about development and daily routines about your child's day. Feel free to bring in all your recyclables, any old pots and pans for our rooms to use in their daily programs for our sustainability practices.

We welcome your feedback and will implement all your feedback as we are aiming for your child to thrive and extend on their developmental milestones whilst they are in our care at Kidi Kingdom.

Kind Regards, Miss Nadine - Educational Leader

Welcome to Early Years Room.

The children are having lots of fun learning about sea animals and exploring these through a variety of experiences such making octopus using paper and pasting the legs on this helps us extend our manipulative skills through learning what to do and how things work. We have explored how animals live in the ocean by creating a water container and we placed our sea animals into the blue water and they got to investigate what animals live in the ocean and why they help our ocean.

We have extended on the ocean learning by talking about what they like to eat and what where they live to see if they understand that they only live in the ocean. The children have been very responsive and have extended their communication skills by communicating in small groups waiting their turns and listening to each other. We have been doing a fantastic job learning and developing their self help skills with washing hands, putting their dishes away in the bucket after meal times and helping make their beds and pack away. This is a great way for them to help each other and extend on their self help skills throughout the day.

In our group times we have been extending our communication skills with group songs, learning our letters, and saying good morning in different languages so we can further extend on their multicultural awareness and language skills whilst they sit together as a small group experience. Thanks for coming in every day with happy faces, we are so happy to help and further extend your skills whilst in our care.

Kind Regards, Miss Kajal, Miss Talia & Miss Anjali.

Hello Everyone and Welcome to Senior Early Learners.

The children are settling into the classroom and learning our routines for the classroom alongside our peers. For the month of April we have been focusing on colors and using our gentle hands. The children have had a variety of experiences such as painting, pasting, sensory trays, play dough, water and books to help extend on their learning. By participating in these experiences we are extending our problem skills using our cognitive skills, we are extending our fine motor manipulative skills also.

We focus on topics for a longer period of time with this age group as repetitive learning helps the children remember things better and we aim to extend their developmental milestones whilst in our care. We are learning to use our gentle hands with our friends and if we hurt one another, how we can develop an understanding that we need to care and maintain respect for our friends. The children are very excited to give you their Mothers Day presents that they have made for their female figures in their life, they have put lots of imagination into them and have loved doing them.

We enjoy doing both inside and outside play with our peers and extending on our gross motor skills through our large motor muscle movements. The children enjoy role playing with the babies, role modeling what we do in the kitchen at home and cooking up lots of wonderful creations together. Thanks for making every day fantastic for our little Room 3 friends, we love having you here.

Kind Regards, Miss Nadine & Miss Helene.

Welcome to our Families.

We are so pleased to be your children's educators for this year 2023. Firstly, we would like to introduce ourselves. I, Sandy, am the Lead Educator of your children along with Miss Kylie who is the Assistant Educator. It is great that your children have settled into the infant's environment. The children have had multiple opportunities to explore the outdoor playground every morning. Outdoor experience can provide them various opportunities to discover and explore nature as well as strengthen their fine and gross motor skills which develop into their social skills.

During this time we are forming bonds with our little infants and working on fine and gross motor skills. I introduced rainbow colours to the babies this month, using coloured balls and colour objects and pastel colours. Colour recognition is a key cognitive development for the children and also helps in language development. Did you know colours can provide and support emotional development? This is another reason we have been working with colours in supporting the children's emerging development.

Kind Regards, Miss Sandy & Miss Kylie

Hello Everyone and Welcome to the Kindergarten Room.

In the month of April we focused on our Fundamental Movement Skills and helped the children to enhance those skills through lots of outdoor play such as Fort Climbing, Obstacle Course, Dancing, Ball Play and basic games of Doggy Where's Your Bone & What's The Time Mr.Wolf?.These were opportunities for the educators to get to know the children and support the children in the transition to a new service. For our learning and educational development we have introduced the children recognising the first letter of their names, verbs, nouns, numbers 1-10, letter tracing and alphabet recognition.

All the children are very excited for Mother's Day, they made lovely presents for their female figures and can't wait to give them to you. I have observed that most of the children love art and craft experiences, they are very creative. They love to draw daily and did you know, drawing is a great form of expression in their emotional development. They love dancing and also encourage their friends to dance. I will continue with this to enhance their gross motor development and spatial awareness.

Kind Regards, Miss Assra & Miss Sofia.

Welcome to Room School Care.

It has been great getting to know all your children from Prep to Yr7. We have fun bus rides back from the school spotting all the items in the environment and they keep reminding us not to turn left and go up the big hill on the way home so we don't sit in the traffic. This is great to know the children have road safety awareness.

The children enjoy having a play in the classroom when they get back exploring and investigating the games and many other experiences on offer. It is important for the children to self-select based on their interests and needs. This helps the children settle and relax from their long day at school and allows them to get to know everyone on a positive note. They enjoy getting outside with their friends and also catching up with their brothers or sisters as well which is great that they can play alongside them as well.

A reminder school holidays are not too far away. Please book in your Vacation Care as the children had lots of fun going across to Pimpama Sports Hub last school holidays and swimming. It was a great way for the children to get to know different communities and explore with their friends in a relaxed environment.

Kind Regards, Miss Jessica.