Getting ready for school
Download the full fact sheet - Getting ready for school 
Education is the key to a bright future for our children and the government is investing in education to give young children the flying start they deserve.
Education starts at home, and parents and families are their children's first teachers.
Children soak up knowledge from the time they are born and what they learn in their early years sets them on the path to success in education.
Literacy and numeracy skills are the essential building blocks of early learning. We can do more before our children start school to help them acquire these skills. So the Queensland and Australian governments are working together to make sure children are ready for school.
We know that kindergarten helps children by improving their development, wellbeing and school readiness, and that is why we are giving Queensland children access to kindergarten programs.
What we will do:
- By 2014, provide every Queensland child access to kindergarten taught by qualified early childhood teachers.
- Continue rolling out up to 240 extra kindergarten services by 2014 in areas where they are needed most.
- Continue to fund additional long day care services to deliver approved kindergarten programs. More than 340 kindergarten long day care services have already been approved, providing an extra 9700 funded kindergarten places.
- Offer more scholarships to early childhood education and care staff to upgrade their qualifications so they can gain teacher registration to deliver approved kindergarten programs.
- Expand the Queensland Ready Readers program of community members who support reading in schools to up to 3000 volunteers.
- Train at least 20 000 parents with children in Prep to Year 3 so they can learn how to help their children become confident readers.
- Establish an online directory of information to help parents guide their child's early development.
- Recognise Prep as the first year of schooling to enable students to take full advantage of the new Australian Curriculum which will be introduced in Queensland from 2012.
- Promote the importance of enrolment in, and regular attendance at Prep.
- Give individual consideration to applications for flexible entry to Prep for geographically isolated children.
Related materials
Early childhood education and care workforce action plan 2011 - 2014
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This page was last reviewed on 09 June 2011
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