Council is seeking expressions of interest from kindergarten providers to deliver services for local families from January 2025.
All Kindergarten Service Providers will be invited to submit an expression of interest to use our buildings to deliver sessional kindergarten. The expression of interest comes after Council decided in August to stop running standalone sessional kindergartens at the end of 2024.
Working with the Department of Education, providers will be selected by August 2024 to allow plenty of time for transition. Through this process, Council is focused on ensuring Knox families can access high-quality services sessional kindergarten locally.
All kindergarten providers have to meet national quality standards and regulations. Every service is assessed and rated against seven areas of quality. These ratings are published publicly.
Council will still offer sessional kindergarten at the Knox Children and Family Centres in Bayswater and Wantirna South in addition to kindergarten in our long day care services. These centres will set a benchmark for the quality of kindergarten available in Knox. This was identified by a community panel as an important way Council can ensure the ongoing quality of services.
There are some big changes coming for kindergarten as part of the state government's decision to increase hours, make kindergarten free and offer a second year of kindergarten before school.
These reforms impact Knox more than other councils because Knox is one of very few councils left in Melbourne that directly provides kindergarten on a large scale.
The decision to exit kindergarten services took into account the ongoing costs of providing kindergarten and that independent providers can be more agile and flexible in the way they plan, adapt and deliver their services when kindergarten is their core business.
There are kindergarten providers already operating in Knox and surrounding areas who are better equipped to grow and adapt their services than Council.
Council will still run sessional kindergartens in 2024 and will take registrations on behalf of the new providers for 2025.
Read more about how we made this decision here: Kindergarten Service Review | Knox City Council
