Three children and parent walking outside school gate

Transition to school

Starting school is an exciting milestone for your child and family. Preparing your child for their transition to school prepares them for future learning and development.

Boy outdoors on tricycle

If you’re trying to decide between a Family Day Care and a Long Day Care service, this information might be helpful 

Choosing between Family Day Care and Long Day Care

The National Quality Framework (NQF) provides a national approach to regulation, assessment and quality improvement for early childhood education and care and outside school hours care services across Australia.

Learn about quality in early childhood education and care

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?

 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?

 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?

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?

 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?

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.

There are many benefits to speaking to your child in a language other than English at home. Besides from their being able to speak with you and your family in a language that you may be more comfortable in, experts have shown that children who learn more than one language demonstrate enhanced cognitive development, can have improved memory and concentration, and are better at solving problems. 

Tips on raising a multilingual child

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

Reading with toddlers

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

Talking and reading with babies

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