Two children playing outdoors with balloon

In an early learning and preschool, what your child wears may also influence your child’s health, safety, comfort, and wellbeing.

What children wear to early childhood education and care

A healthy child is a happy child, at home or at an education and care service. Some services will provide all or most of your child’s meals while they are there, while others may only supply snacks, or require you to provide all of your child’s food.

How services support good nutrition

Quality programs for children preschool age and under in services such as long day care, family day care or preschool/kindergarten settings, are developed in ways that take into account each child’s interests, ideas, strengths, experiences, culture and needs.

Educational programs in early education and care services

On this page, you’ll find information and guides on children and services, from how to choose a suitable service to what to expect when your child enrols.

This article is a brief guide to the assessment and rating process for approved early childhood education and care services across Australia.

The assessment and rating process

You can search for a children’s education and care service using the 

 and compare services vacancies, fees, National Quality Standard (NQS) quality ratings and inclusions.

How can our Find Child Care tool help you?

 to estimate your out-of-pocket costs and Child Care Subsidy (CCS) entitlements.

This quick and easy tool takes less than 2 minutes to use.

How can our Subsidy Calculator tool help you?

 sets a high national benchmark for early childhood education and care and outside school hours care services in Australia.

 and see its NQS quality rating in the results. 

The government regulatory authorities in states and territories assess and rate services against these seven NQS quality areas:

6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities

Services are given ratings for each of the seven quality areas as well as an overall service quality rating, and we display all of these.  

How can you find NQS service quality ratings?

How services update their fees and vacancies on StartingBlocks.gov.au

How do I update my service's details on StartingBlocks.gov.au?

 search results include service phone numbers and email addresses, so you can call or email them to book a visit.

How can you book a service visit?

 resources provide information on our national regulatory system, service quality ratings, health and safety, educational programs, what to expect and transition to school.

 resources provide information about supporting your child's early years learning and development, parenting, health and safety. 

How can our resources help you?

 helps you find the service types regulated under Australia's National Quality Framework (NQF):

What types of services can we help you find?

If a service is rated Working Towards NQS, it is providing safe education and care on its journey to higher quality in one or more NQS quality areas.

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 Standard (NQS).

 is not a pass-fail system, it encourages every service to keep getting better and better. 

What does a service rating of Working Towards NQS mean?

You can email us a question or feedback anytime.

Under our Customer Service Charter, we work hard to answer your questions as quickly as we can and the response time is often less than 5 days.

How can you ask us for help using our tools and resources? 

You can contact your state/territory regulatory authority. 

They’re responsible for approving providers and services, assessing and rating services, compliance and promoting continuous improvement.

How can you complain about a service?

 to help children with additional needs participate in early childhood education and care. It provides tailored support and funding to services to address barriers to inclusion.

 in each state and territory deliver the program. These agencies provide support and advice to early childhood education and care services to help them address barriers to inclusion.

How can services help children with additional needs?

Our Find Child Care tool is undergoing maintenance. At the moment you can search by suburb or service name. We look forward to resuming all search options soon.

What you do online and how you use devices provides a model that can help to lay the foundations for their online safety. So it’s important for you, as parents and carers, to be aware of setting a good example.

How to model good screen practices for your child

It’s never too early, or too late, to start reading with your baby.

Talking and reading with babies

This factsheet contains tips to keep in mind to encourage reading with a toddler. Have fun together enjoying stories and books.

Reading with toddlers

Information and guides on parenting topics including your child’s development, plus tips to encourage your child's learning at home.

Learning through play is one of the most important ways children learn and develop. Children’s success as learners depends on developing strong foundations from infancy, and play based learning supports this. 

Resources

Attending a service

Your child's development

Frequently Asked Questions