Skip to main content

Your first step into early childhood education and outside school hours care

Australia's free government website for families and communities to find and compare services by quality ratings, fees, vacancies and inclusions.

Find a service
Hero image

Understand how governments rate service quality

To ensure the health and safety of children, our national regulatory system sets a high bar for services to be rated Meeting the National Quality Standards (NQS).

Learning begins from the start

It’s important your child has opportunities to learn and develop every day. Find out about early years learning and development.

Understand how quality gives children the best start in life

Research shows quality early education and care leads to better health, education and employment outcomes later in life. Find out how educators deliver quality in services.

Calculate your costs

Find out what your Child Care Subsidy (CCS) entitlements and out-of-pocket costs may be.

Get started
Starting Blocks logo
Loading...

StartingBlocks.gov.au - as a parent, I think it's really important for me to understand the national service quality rating, it gives me confidence to research centres.

- Mother of a four year old child attending a long day care service

StartingBlocks.gov.au website was really important, quality education is so important to my whole family. We've always taken a lot of time to choose the right place.

- Father of a 3 year old attending long day care and family day care services

StartingBlocks.gov.au opened my eyes to a whole bunch of things as far as really understanding those national quality standards that you're looking for.

- Mother of 5 year old twins attending an outside school hours care service

Brought to you by ACECQA - Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality AuthorityStarting Blocks logo
Connect with us
ACECQA acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of country throughout Australia and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the Elders past and present.