services for 108 children and carried out assessments
to secure funding to support the inclusion of those
children.
The Supplementary Recurrent Assistance Indigenous
Education program supported 75 children (53 in 2007)
in 23 KU preschools in 2008.
Family Programs
KU Family Programs provide specific support to families
with young children who have been identified as
vulnerable. This support is largely delivered in the context
of Supported Playgroups and comes at no cost to the
family. The groups are staffed, supported and equipped
to the same high quality standard as all other KU
services.
During 2008, staff worked with approximately 415
families (400 in 2007) in 22 Local Government Areas
across Sydney and Newcastle. The 30 groups in the 7
Family Programs were all at capacity.
Additional funding enabled the establishment of KU
Macquarie Fields Extending Services for families with
children with disabilities in 2008, whilst the cessation of
funding for Northern Sydney Supported Playgroups saw
the program close in December.
Delivering Quality
During 2008, KU introduced Quality Standards to identify
components of quality in KU centres and to support
improvement.
All mainstream KU services participated in the self-
evaluation process using measurement descriptors
and quality ratings in three focus areas: Environment,
Curriculum and Professional Development. Centres then
developed action plans designed to help them meet or
exceed the established quality standard.
Strategies were implemented to achieve these goals and
will be further evaluated and expanded to provide the
foundation for a continuous improvement process.
Overall, the information gathered demonstrated that
the majority of KU centres have practices that are good
to high quality in each of the areas. The process was
successful in articulating quality practice and affirmed
the high quality that exists in KU services.
All long day care centres complete the Commonwealth’s
Quality Improvement and Accreditation System every
2.5 years. Twenty KU centres completed this in 2008 with
19 achieving the highest possible rating in all 7 quality
assessment areas.
ELLI
KU’s Early Language and Literacy Initiative (ELLI) took
place in two KU preschools located in South Western
Sydney, assisting 168 children from 137 families. Sustainability
In 2008 KU introduced a Sustainability Manager to build
on the work done in establishing The Treehouse. A pilot
project was launched to integrate sustainability into
centre management, curriculum and family education.
An independent evaluation of the project in 2008
indicated that the project had been successful in
enhancing the language and literacy outcomes of
children who had moved to school in the three years
prior. 12 centres participated in the trial which included a
series of workshops and ongoing support provided by the
Sustainability Manager. All centres benefited from the
initiative as information and resources were distributed
through the Bulletin. The project will continue in 2009.
The KU ELLI Program Guide was developed for use by
other early childhood professionals and encourages early
childhood staff to explore strategies for enhancing the
early language and literacy development of children. Outcomes from the project will be included in an updated
Environmental Resource Document which will be released
in 2009 and will be available to the wider community.
Continued funding for KU ELLI has been approved, and
has enabled the expansion of the program to a third
preschool in Mount Druitt NSW.
113th Annual Report 2008
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