Initial payments are made once, after scholars provide supporting documentation of:  

• enrolment in an eligible course 
• enrolment in units occurring after their award date, and that the census date for those units has passed 
• their full academic history for their course, including recognised prior learning and all units completed to date .

Milestone payments are calculated individually for each scholar and are made after scholars provide supporting documentation of credit points completed adding up to the required number for their milestone payment. 

Practical unit support payments are available to scholars in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 Early Childhood Teaching Scholarships programs. These payments are made after scholars provide supporting documentation of enrolment in practical units occurring after their award date.

EMMA

Hello. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for an information session for Early Childhood Teaching Scholars. The focus for the session this evening is supporting ECT scholars to make payment requests. I am Emma Lindsay, Manager of Programs for Children and it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you all online this evening. We recognise that many of you may have joined after a long day educating our early learners, and we hope that you are able to gain some valuable insights about your requirements as an ECT scholar with the Department of Education.

I just wanna take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the various lands on which we all work, live, and join this session this evening, as well as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people participating in this ECE Connect session today. I pay my respects to elders past and present, as well as recognise and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal people and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of New South Wales.

Before I hand over to the team to talk you through the details and tips regarding the scholarship payment requests, I'd like to go through a few quick dot points on housekeeping. So firstly, your microphone and video will be disabled during the presentation. We'll be using Menti at the end of the session. A Menti allows live collection of information. In preparation, please have a mobile phone available so you can participate. The session will be recorded and available on our website following completion of the webinar, there are automated closed captions that have been enabled during this session for accessibility and a final remark as we kick off this session, I'd like to clarify that all advice provided this evening about preparing for a payment request is general in nature. For specific guidance on your individual ECT scholarship, we ask you to refer to your individual documentation and please seek assistance by emailing us directly. We'll be sharing details on screen shortly.

So tonight you're also going to hear from two other members of the ECT Scholarship Team, and we're gonna take a quick moment to do some brief introductions before we begin. Allow me to first introduce myself. I am Emma, I'm a manager working closely with our ECT Scholarship Team. I am incredibly proud to be a long serving department educator and leader, and now supporting the great work in early childhood education with early childhood educators like yourself and the great work that you do every day. I'll now pass over to Linda to introduce herself.

LINDA

Thank you, Emma. Hi everyone. My name is Linda. I am a Senior Programs Officer supporting the team to administer the early childhood teaching scholarship program. I have experience as an educator and have worked in diverse roles that support public education outcomes and I'm pleased to be here today, to be here with you today. Hanne, you're up next.

HANNE

Thanks, Linda. Hello, I'm Hanne. I'm a Delivery Officer in the Scholarships Team. Some of you may even have spoken to me before on the phone or by email. I'm really proud to have worked in the early childhood space, the department for several years, and I previously spent a couple of years working in an early childhood service. I consider it a privilege to support our early childhood sector through my work. I will throw back to you, Emma.

EMMA

Thank you and perhaps a little bit about you all this evening joining us, we understand online that there's a mix of scholars here tonight. You come to us working right across the state and sector in a variety of services as well as being from a variety of scholarship cohorts. The vast majority are actually from our most recent 2023, '24 cohort, and there's a fairly even mix of experience in terms of those that have and haven't had experience submitting payment requests previously. What this tells us is that it's a really great opportunity for us to clarify how payment requests work, as well as understand some of your insights and queries to ensure that we can streamline and improve our processes for future payment request rounds. Over to you Linda.

LINDA

Thank you, Emma. We are going to spend the majority of this session providing you with some tips and insights on making successful payment requests. During this session we may be able to address general questions you may have this evening, but please note we are unable to respond to individual questions about your specific circumstances. For example, details of your individual Funding Notice. For general questions though, as they come to mind throughout the session, please use the Q and A function at the top of your screen during this presentation. We have some members of our ECT Scholarship Team here behind the scenes, and you may have spoken with them before, Jess, Nelson and Grace. They'll be keeping an eye on the questions. We'll address these towards the end of the session. If you have questions specific to you, please send this question to us via email to ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au.

Before we dive into the payment request process, it may be useful for us to all pause and clarify the key terms we'll be using. These terms are important as they make up aspects of your scholarship payment requirements. Let's start with payment request rounds. What is the payment request? A payment request round refers to periodic opportunity at different points across the year provided to scholars seeking payments from the department as part of their scholarships.

To ask for a payment, scholars needs to log into Smarty Grants and submit a payment request. We run 3 payment request periods each year, February, July, and November. Types of payment. Initial payment. This refers to the $1,000 distributed to the scholar during the first academic session of study. Typically after the scholar provides proof of enrollment past the university's census date. Milestone payment. This payment is made when scholars progress through their study and degree and completed subjects and units. You can find information about relationship between your units completed and your payment entitlements in your Funding Notice. Practical unit support payments. Up to 2 payments of $2,500 each, so that's a maximum total of $5,000 are available to support scholars to complete a practical unit as part of their degree. You may also refer to these as professional placement, practical session or practical experiences. Smarty Grants. This is our preferred platform for the majority of our scholars to submit their payment requests.

As you can imagine, the ECT Scholarship Team process a large volume of payment requests. The documents you wish to provide must be uploaded via Smarty Grants when payment request periods are open for assessment. You'll be advised via email when that time will be. Any document received via email will not be accepted, but please note for ECT scholarship cohorts onboarded before 2020, there is a different payment request process. These scholars will have been provided with a PDF payment request form. They must fill this form and attach an academic transcript to an email and send back to us in the relevant period. This form has 3 key dates on it and payment periods differ from the newer scholarship rounds. We'll encourage those scholars to refer to your Deed of Agreement for detailed information. For the majority of our scholars, Smarty Grant is our preferred platform. Please do not submit via email.

Now what do we mean by sufficient evidence or sufficient documentation? This is the supporting material you are required to upload before submitting your payment request. This is often your academic transcript. You are actually not expected to pay for an official academic transcript to qualify for milestone payment except for your final milestone payment. You can access your unofficial transcript through your university portal online. Please work with your university student centre if you would like further support with this, but remember, seek this support before a payment round closes so that you have enough time to be ready for submission. And lastly, another important term we always refer to is your Funding Notice. Each individual scholar receives a Funding Notice that is initially prepared at the beginning of your scholarship with us alongside with your Deed of Agreement. This is a documentation that is specific to each scholar's context. The Funding Notice is based on the progress made in your studies and based on the program. Essentially, we need to reference your transcript you submit that shows you have reached a certain stage of your degree that will qualify you for your next payment. If you have not yet received a Funding Notice, this may mean that you have not yet begun your study journey or we have not received enough information to generate one. Remember, everyone is at a different stage of their scholarship journey. If you have submitted a payment request in the recent July round, the team are currently working on assessing your transcripts right now. You'll receive a Funding Notice sent to your email before you receive a payment if you have provided us with enough information. For tips to submit an eligible payment request, I'll now hand over to Hanne.

HANNE

Thanks Linda, and a quick reminder before I continue, please feel free to drop any comments or questions about these tips in the Q and A function now or as you think of them.

Our team are currently assessing payment requests made not too long ago in mid-July. Each payment request is manually assessed by the team including me, and it can take some time to ensure that we're getting the details right. We are working through batches of requests beginning with those who submitted eligible evidence during the July request period. The good news is that means some of you will start to receive payment soon. However, we are still in the process of assessing the many requests received and we're working really hard to have all payments made by late October. You may have colleagues or friends who receive a payment notification before you do. Please rest assured that all submitted requests are under assessment and we will be in touch to let you know an outcome either way by late October.

So we've captured some key tips we think are important for all scholars to note when making a payment request. These tips will be useful to you for submitting your next payment request, which may be in November depending on the progress of your coursework.

The first tip, number one, is to add us to your email account contacts. We email you from our scholarship email address, which is ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au. You can also see it here displayed on the screen under number one. The email address is used to send information about payment rounds and notify you of the correct links to use as well as any key dates and any relevant information or updates about your scholarship. Due to the high volume of scholars we support, we have to ensure we open and close the rounds fairly for everyone. This means it's important to jot down those relevant dates for the payment rounds, which we email out to you in advance of the round opening in Smarty Grants. Adding us into your contact list ensures you don't miss a single message from us.

Our second tip is to work with your university early. Preparation is key to ensure you're providing the correct information to make a payment request. On the right here we have a checklist outlining what we need to see clearly in your documentation or transcript. Your university will be able to point you into the direction of where to access this and you'll need to ensure that your transcript clearly shows your full name, the university you're enrolled in, the date you received or downloaded the document, your degree name, or sometimes just the degree code, dates for when your subjects are completed and under which session in the year. Clear subject codes and credit points associated with that, all subject results and your completion and enrollment status. Also, please ensure the transcript is the right size and nice and clear for us to read.

Now tip number 3 please refer to your Funding Notice every time you make a payment request for your scholarship. Your Funding Notice is crucial to ensure the progress made in your studies qualifies you for your next payment. Remember we said that every scholar has their own Funding Notice that we send out, which is calculated based on information you submit early in your scholarship journey. Please be aware, these can also be revised and are called revised Funding Notices. We revise your Funding Notice when your situation changes or when you submit a transcript that shows this might be needed based on your units of study.

Tip number 4 some scholars but not all may be eligible for practical unit support payments. Only two practical unit support payments up to $5,000 in total will be provided. So if your degree includes more than two practical units, you can decide when the payment is best used. You can only be paid for a particular practical unit once. If you fail a withdraw from a practical unit after payment, you are unable to receive another practical unit payment for this unit.

Based on recent experiences, we also wanted to clarify a couple of things around practical payments which are also communicated in your deed. First, practical units need to appear on supplied transcripts either as enrolled or completed. Typically, units will not appear on a transcript ahead of the current academic year and we only pay for practical units that show enrollment on transcripts after your award date. So for the 2023 to '24 cohort, that date is the 9th of October, 2023. This means that as soon as a practical unit appears on your transcript as enrolled, you can put this into a next payment request. While your scholarship is not intended to reimburse costs, its purpose is to support your study and we appreciate that practical units do have financial impact. Support preparation of payment requests can be beneficial.

That said, if the unit is planned but not currently enrolled, this means it isn't eligible for payment. And second, scholars need to explicitly apply for practical payments through Smarty Grants during a payment request period. They're not automatically made. Our team do not review transcripts looking for enrollment or completion of practical units as a standard practice, you need to alert us that you'd like the unit paid when you lodge through Smarty Grants during a payment request period. Practical units follow the same payment schedules milestone payments, and as mentioned, scholars will be notified by email when payment requests are open for submission in February, July and November each year. If you have any questions about your submission, we encourage you to contact us before the payment request period closes. We are more than happy to help. Remember though, we can't assess documents for eligibility until the payment request period closes. So it's important to make sure your documentation is eligible before submitting. And finally, make sure you do a final check over all of your details and then hit Submit. Thank you. I'll hand back to Linda.

LINDA

Thank you Hanne. These are really, really great tips. So there are likely to be questions or comments from you based on some of these tips. So we encourage you to keep submitting your questions in the Q and A function. I know Jess, Grace and Nelson are currently sorting them out to address shortly. Now let's determine what to avoid when submitting a request. This is very important.

Firstly, we have mentioned that we can't accept documents via email from most of our scholars. They can only be considered if they're submitted through Smarty Grants to ensure that we do not miss any attachment in our inbox.

For point number 2, we've highlighted incompleted transcript. To the right here, we have got an example of what will be considered insufficient documentation. In this example, we can see this actually looks like a transcript, but if we look a little closer we can see some key information are missing. Please avoid submitting documents similar to this. As you can see in this example, there are several things that are missing. The university official letterhead, the document date, when your subjects were completed, your results, and your completion and enrollment status. This example will mean the team unfortunately have to conclude this payment request as not payable or not eligible. The scholar is able to submit a further request at the next payment round opportunity, but our aim is to ensure you are paid for what you believe you are eligible for if you have the correct documentation. With this in mind, it is always wise to avoid submitting any documentation that we can't clearly read. Any transcripts submitted that are small in image size or blurry in quality means unfortunately we can't assess and therefore your payment requests will be considered as ineligible.

Number 4 relates back to your Funding Notice. If you do not have a Funding Notice yet, please ensure you're following these steps to ensure the right documentations for us to generate a Funding Notice for future payment request route. For scholars who already have a Funding Notice, please refer to your Funding Notice. This helps you to determine if you are indeed due for a payment and at which milestone credit point percentage. We have also popped in here to avoid skipping any details in our correspondence to you. All emails we sent to you are mindfully written in a way that ensures that you have all the details you need to meet the requirements of a payment round. We are deeply committed to improve our process and communication to support payment requests round. We may not always get it right, but please note we are always listening and value the feedback we receive.

For example, we've recently heard that it'll be helpful to provide a document that explicitly details each step with screenshots on how to use Smarty Grants. So for at least half of you on the call tonight, you do not yet have the experience in using Smarty Grants as a platform for submitting payment requests. So this is something that we'll be preparing ahead of the next payment round in November. There will likely to be other suggestions that come through tonight and in the future that can help us improve your ECT Scholarship experience and ensure more efficient milestone payments into your bank account. I'll throw it back to you, Emma.

EMMA

Great, thank you, Linda, and thanks, Hanne. These are important insights and I know that they're based on some of the examples that we see regularly during payment request periods and that's a great segue into our final two items for this evening. One, we wanna address some of your questions before we then seek your feedback on suggested supports that we have in mind via Menti. I just wanna take a moment to reiterate again that every scholar's journey is different.

Our experience tells us that no 2 scholars Funding Notices are the same, nor the pace or the pattern of study that individual scholars complete their qualifications, they vary, so again, the advice that you're hearing tonight is general in nature. For individualised queries, please reach out to us. I wanna take a moment again to allow you to jot down, if you need, how to reach the team if there's specific support or questions that you need either during or before a payment request round. I know it's been said, but we're unable to pre-assess any documentation before the round to check that it meets requirements until that payment round has closed and our assessment period commences.

However, we are able to assist you with updating your details. This might be your bank account, your address, a name, for example, recently we have had some issues with emails bouncing back. So encourage you to keep in touch with updates to your email address as well. You may have other questions, which you are welcome to ask us. Please do reach out. It makes it much easier to streamline the communication within our team if you include your full name, your scholarship ID, and a clear outline of your inquiry and a member of our team similar to the ones we've heard from tonight, we'll be in touch as soon as possible.

Let's now look to some of the questions that we've received from you this evening. Thank you to Jess, Nelson and Grace. You've done a great job behind the scenes here, pulling together, grouping some of the questions. We can see that there are some similar themes to make sure they're reflective of the questions that we've got coming through.

Again, I feel like I'm in an insurance ad, but our guidance here tonight is general in nature. You'll need to refer to your own sets of documentation that were sent to you as part of the onboarding process based on your individual context for the specific application of how it stands to your scholarship. So first question that we have off the ranks this evening, how do you determine my total scholarship amount? Linda, let me throw to you on that one.

LINDA

Thanks, Emma. This is a question that we receive quite often. So scholars can receive up to $20,000 in scholarship funding as well as up to $5,000 in practical unit support payment for eligible cohorts. Your Funding Notice actually breaks down your schedule of payments and your total scholarship amount. The calculation includes factors such as your current units completed and any recognised prior learning as known as RPLs. Any units completed prior to your award date are not eligible for payments. If you do have specific questions about your circumstance or believe the information in your Funding Notice isn't correct, please reach out to the team via email and we'll help you. Thank you, Emma.

EMMA

No worries. Thank you. And that sort of leads into our next question. What do I do if I haven't received my Funding Notice and where would I find it? Hanne, over to you.

HANNE

That is a great question. If you submitted a payment request in the recent July round, the team are currently working on assessing those transcripts now and you'll receive a Funding Notice via email if you've provided us with enough information to create your Funding Notice. So just keep an eye out on your inbox and hopefully get it, get back to you soon. Back to you, Emma.

EMMA

Thank you. Thanks for clarifying. Another question we've had come through. This one's from Peter. "My transcript does not have all the information that you stated on the checklist. What should I do?" Linda.

LINDA

Thank you, Emma. So if your transcript does not contain all the criteria mentioned early, please reach out to your university directly. We actually do accept multiple types of documentation as long as they meet our criteria. We also send out a guide for submitting eligible documents when payment requests open. So please review before submitting your documents through Smarty Grants.

EMMA

Great, thanks, Linda. Another one as we get through them, this one's from Elizabeth. "Will we be told if our documentation that we provided recently was not sufficient?" Hanne.

HANNE

Perfect. So you'll receive a payment outcome notification once the team has finalised our assessments. So expect to hear from us around late October. Don't worry if you're not successful in this round. You can submit in the next payment request round and they open three times a year, February, July and November. So we'll email you when you can submit your request again and that outcome notification will let you know why you were unable to be paid in this round.

EMMA

Yeah, thanks, Hanne, I think that's a really good clarification. We don't want any scholars going into the next payment round not knowing and submitting the same evidence again. Another one we've got a few scholars want to know what happens if they miss a payment round. Linda.

LINDA

Thanks, Emma. So payment requests open in February, July and November of each year as you have heard from Hanne. We'll email you when payment requests open and attach clear instruction to submit eligible documents through Smarty Grants. So I will encourage you to always keep an eye out on your email, including your Junk and Spam folder, because you will receive a lot of communication from us when the next payment request round opens. Thanks, Emma.

EMMA

No worries, I also think further to that, Linda, sometimes you may also receive emails that come through to us from perhaps DocuSign or an automated email once a payment has been made. Generally the majority of communications, as you know, will come through from our ECEC scholarships inbox from the team, but they may be one or two with connected documents as they pertain to some of the actions. Looks like we're keen to give everyone a bit of an early mark and and make the best use of time. But I'd like to include one more and I think this is a one that is often on scholars' lips and understandable. When will I receive my payment? Hanne, I'll pass this over to you.

HANNE

Fantastic, thanks, Emma. So if you have submitted a payment request in the most recent round in July, the team are currently working really hard to assess all of your documentation. We hope to notify you of the outcomes in October. So if you submitted eligible evidence, you can expect a payment by late October. Thanks.

EMMA

No worries. Thanks Hanne. We've got a few more questions that I can see here. Some of those are individual. We are going to make sure that every question is covered. We're going to package these up and send them to you shortly over the coming week. I might hand back to you, Hanne, to take us through the Menti.

HANNE

Fabulous, thank you so much. So before we wrap up today's session, we wanted to ensure you have an opportunity to provide us with some feedback on how we can better support you with preparing your evidence or just in general as part of your scholarship journey. So we have a QR code up on the screen. Please use your phone if you have it handy and we'll also pop a link in the chat if you'd prefer to do this on your computer instead.

Basically we wanna hear from you, how can we better support payment requests and the ECT Scholarships experience? So this is an opportunity for you to let us know which of the following would be most helpful in your opinion. We'll be preparing some additional supports and resources and we're interested in which ones you think will be the most valuable in the short term. You'll see some options on the screen as you access the Menti that you can vote on. I will read them out for those of you who are still getting in to that Menti, but they are a comprehensive guide on how to submit payment requests, a Q and A sheet on submitting payment requests, a step-by-step document on how to use Smarty Grants, a webinar on understanding your Funding Notice, a webinar on changes to your circumstances, a more comprehensive welcome pack when accepting an ECT scholarship or something else.

So if you have any ideas that you don't see listed here, please do email us at the scholarship's inbox. Or alternatively, you could pop a comment in the Q and A function now. Having a bit of a look, it looks like there's a lot of movement in that Menti, which is fantastic. It looks like so far a comprehensive guide on submitting payment request does seem to be the most popular with a document on how to use Smarty Grants, which I gotta say is not terribly surprising I think. It does look like they're submitting payment requests. Does seem to be the point of most support needed, which again, is not terribly surprising and is really great to get your feedback on how you'd like us to help you to do that.

Beautiful. As we said, you're more than welcome if you think of something later on or if you have some suggestions, make sure that you do email us at the inbox. We're always here to listen to any ideas that you might have. And definitely looking at the information you've given us here, there's some immediate improvements to our supports and approach next payment round opening that we can make. We'll leave this open a little bit longer, but I wanna reiterate, this session has been recorded and it'll be made available to you as soon as possible. We're expecting this to probably be around a week. So for some of you that arrive late, you will have access to the full session and also everyone will be able to review it prior to the next payment request opening in November. Thank you so much. I'll hand back to Emma.

EMMA

Thanks, Hanne, and thank you to everyone joining us this evening and for your feedback. It is what we hope to be the first of more series of sessions that provides practical guidance and context to your ECT Scholarship. We've spoken about the best way to keep in touch with us. So here again on screen is our email address. We have some great human beings here in the team. You may have recognised some of their names already spoken to them before. We do appreciate each and every one of you making the time at the end of your day and in between study and all that is balanced in our home and full lives outside of work.

We extend our very best as you continue or perhaps commence your studies. On a personal level as an educator and a parent of both small and large children, I absolutely value the great work that you do every day for our early learners. I have seen and felt the incredible impact my children's educators have had in their lives in family day care, long day care, community preschool settings. So thank you. Till next time.

Natasha Hudson:

My name is Natasha Hudson and it is my absolute pleasure to be welcoming you to this online event. I'd like to thank you for joining, whether it be in person live as we're undertaking this recording or maybe you're watching back later, but we'd absolutely like to recognise that you are spending your valuable time here with us now and we're keen to ensure that the time that you've dedicated to this will be valuable and informative. In particular, you are here, I hope, to learn about and ask questions and hear answers about funding notices that relate to ECT scholarships, the use of SmartyGrants forms and about transcripts. So hopefully we'll be sharing some really practical tips and giving you advice that will help you to feel more confident in undertaking this process. Last Monday, you'll have received a notice about the November payment round, and you'll have until the 17th of November, so that's this Sunday coming up, to submit your payment request.

And if you have any questions that are more individualised to your funding notice that you want to seek clarification on, then please do send that through to the general email and we'll give you the details for that shortly. Before we begin, and as we do begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians across the various lands and waters and which we're all joining, where we live, work, and play, and acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants who are joining in this session. And the continuing contributions of elders past and present, and those continuing to contribute their culture and knowledge as we undertake the work that we do collectively in supporting early learners and their families, and in particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early learning children who are participating in early learning services.

As mentioned, you might be joining live, but this session is being recorded and a copy of that recording will be sent to you at the end of this session. We're looking to get the recordings as well as other important resources out to you next week for your future reference. I'm joined by a number of colleagues within the department who support with the ECT Scholarship Program, and I'll next throw to Hanne O'Connor who will continue on the session.

Hanne O'Connor:

Thanks so much, Natasha. Before we start, we have a little bit of housekeeping here on the screen. The most important item on the list is to make sure you pop all of your questions into our Q&A function so we can discuss them at the end. Or if we run out of time, we'll share further information with you in the coming week, including in those resources. Now we aren't able to respond to questions that relate to your individual circumstances in the session. If you do have a very specific question about your circumstances, please send us a detailed email with your scholarship ID and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. The email address to email to will be popped onto the screen a few times and we'll repeat it out loud a few times as well, so you will absolutely not forget, I promise.

As mentioned, we're going to be recording this, so please do let your friends know if they're having any trouble with their payment requests, that it'll be there for them to review at a later date just to check the information. Now, my name's Hanne. I'm a programs officer currently working in the ECT scholarships team. I also spoke in the previous webinar and it is a privilege to be back here with you all this evening. I'm just going to very briefly throw over to a new face in the team, Nelson.

Nelson Crossley:

Thanks, Hanne. Hello everyone. My name's Nelson and I'm also in the ECT scholarships team. I may have spoken to some of you by email or on the phone, and it's great to be able to speak to you with you directly like this. We have some other members of our ECT scholarships team here behind the scenes, Linda, Roopa and Shreya, who will be keeping an eye on the questions as they come through. Now, I'll hand back to you, Hanne, to dive into the funding notices.

Hanne O'Connor:

Thanks so much, Nelson. So shortly, we're going to be looking at an example of a funding notice. If you would like to follow along on your own funding notice, which we recommend, please search in your emails for an email that's titled, "Funding notice," sent from our email address ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au. Before we dive into our example, there's some really important points to remember. One, is that your funding notice is sent to you by our team toward the beginning of your time as a scholar once you provide us with a full academic history for your course. This is so we can see that you're enrolled in subjects past their census date, and that occur after you were awarded all credits or recognised prior learning, and the dates or sessions for all completed and enrolled units. We need all of this information to calculate your funding notice. Two, if you haven't received a funding notice yet, this might mean that you haven't started studying yet or that we haven't received enough information for us to generate your funding notice.

Three, and very importantly, every scholar's funding notice is individualised and custom calculated according to the information that you guys give to us. So you can't check anyone else's funding notices to find out how you're going. Number four, your funding notice can be revised should you provide documents that show changes such as new credits or RPL or a change of course, a university, and this can mean that your funding amount changes. And lastly, the information in this webinar is most relevant to scholars who are in our ECT and ECE scholarship programs and especially our 2022 to '23 and 2023 to '24 cohorts. So let's have a look at our example funding notice. The top items that you can see here are your education provider, so your university or institution. Then the total number of credit points that you need to complete your degree, any recognised prior learning, if applicable. And completion of units prior to the date specified by the department. This is your award date. It's best to check your deed for further information or you can email us at the inbox to find out.

These are used to determine your total scholarship amount, so if these details are incorrect in your funding notice, please reach out to the scholarships team. For the 2023 to '24 cohort scholars only, your total scholarship amount includes payment for your RPL, but units completed before you become a scholarship recipient aren't paid for any of our cohorts. Now moving from left to right, the first two columns you can see are your list of payments, from your initial payment to your 100% milestone payment. Your initial is paid first when you submit proof of enrolment, pass the census date and after your scholarship was awarded. Scholars must receive their initial payments prior to their milestone payments and not at the same time. Your milestones are percentages of the total number of credits required by your qualification. And then the final column you can see there is the dollar amount that is due at each milestone and your total scholarship amount is down the bottom.

So in this example, the scholar needs to attain 192 credit points to complete their course. They have 84 points of recognised prior learning and no units completed before their award date of 9 October, 2023. They are a 2023 to '24 scholar. We know this because, A, their award date is 9th of October, 2023, and B, while they have RPL, their total scholarship amount is $20,000, which is the full amount available for a bachelor or master qualification. Their first eligible payment is the next milestone reached after their 84 credit points of RPL. So the scholar needs to actively complete 12 units to be ready for a payment. Now if we imagine that their transcript showed 108 completed units, we could look at their funding notice and see that they would be eligible for their 50% milestone payment, which in this case would be $2,850.

In this example, they haven't achieved 120 completed units, so they're not yet due for their 62.5% milestone. Don't worry if this sounds a little confusing. The more payment requests you submit, the more comfortable and familiar you'll become with the process of reading your funding notice. Please also note for our 2022 to '23 and '23 to '24 scholars, your funding notice doesn't show your practical unit payments. We recommend you keep a record of which payments you've received over the course of your scholarship, especially to keep track of your practical payments. And now I'll be passing over to Nelson who's going to explain how to use your funding notice when requesting a payment. Thank you.

Nelson Crossley:

Thanks Hanne. So before we look at how to use your funding notice when requesting a payment, there's two things that are important about your funding notice. The first thing to mention is, you might've been thinking, "Why does my funding notice look a bit different from the example Hanne just showed us?" And that reason is, the funding notices can either have four or eight milestones. If you are completing a master's degree, a graduate certificate or a graduate diploma, your funding notice will only show four milestone payments compared to the eight milestone payments. This is because a master's degree, a grad dip or a graduate diploma are shorter than a bachelor's degree, and the funding notice is calculated accordingly. Please note, whether your funding notice shows four or eight milestones, this does not change how you use your funding. Notice when submitting a payment request. The second thing that's important to touch on are revised funding notices.

If you've changed courses or universities or some details like your RPL have changed since the last transcript you provided to the team, we'll need to recalculate your funding notice to reflect your circumstances. It's important to note that this could result in a change to your total scholarship amount. If you suspect that your funding notice is incorrect or your circumstances have changed, please email the scholarship inbox which is ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au, and we may need to issue you a revised funding notice. In that case, it's best to follow the same steps that I'm about to share, but be aware that the team will need to send you a revised funding notice. So to a request a payment, you'll need to open up both your funding notice and your most recent academic transcript. The first step you want to do is to check the total number of credits you've attained, including any credits completed for award and your recognised prior learning.

This will tell you which milestone you've reached. To ensure you have an up-to-date academic transcript, we recommend reaching out to your university before each payment request period opens. The second step is to confirm which milestones you've already been paid for. Payment notifications are sent through by our finance team from the email. Do not reply - doepayment@det.nsw.edu.au. The emails they send come with an attachment that will explain what the payment is for. Usually, they'll let you know which percentage milestone you've reached, although this isn't always the case. Often, they'll include whether you're receiving a milestone or a practical unit payment. By confirming the amounts you've been paid, you can be sure that you're ready for the next payment amount that's shown on your funding notice. If you are unsure which milestone you've been paid, a best guess is okay, we'll assess which milestone you're eligible for and make sure you're paid those anyway.

You won't get rejected if you accidentally select the wrong milestone percentage. For your practical unit support payments, you only get two of these. And again, if you've forgotten how many of these you've been paid, don't worry, we can check it out on our end. The third step is to upload your evidence through SmartyGrants during a payment request period. We have a guide on the scholarships website and we're also available to support you through the scholarships inbox. The fourth step is waiting for your outcome. After the payment request closes, we go away and assess all the requests we receive. This can take us some time to process. The anticipated dates of when your outcome will be sent with the confirmation you've submitted on SmartyGrants, and we will strive to get back to you by this time. If we haven't reached out before those dates, don't stress, we'll be in touch as soon as we have an update for you. Hanne, I think we have just enough time to look at some of the questions we've got. Do you want to kick us off?

Hanne O'Connor:

Thanks, Nelson. First question I've got here is, "Why is my funding notice different to my friend's funding notice?" Which is a really good question and hopefully we have given a couple of points now that would help explain it. But to recap, every scholar's funding notice is unique to their circumstances and is based on the information given to us by scholars. So while you may have a similar study journey to other scholars, no two scholars have identical circumstances. So it's better to reach out to the team to have your own funding notice explained rather than to rely on information that might've been based on someone else's information. Nelson, do you want to grab the next question?

Nelson Crossley:

Yes, happily. We've had a good one come in, which is, "I can't find my funding notice. Can you please help me?" This is one we get a lot. The first thing I'd recommend doing is, your funding notice will have been emailed to you. And so please look in your emails from us, from ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au and search for the term, "Funding notice." If you still can't find it, please let us know via that same email address. But there is also a chance that the evidence you supplied did not provide us enough information to calculate your funding notice in the first place, and in which case, a funding notice will be emailed to you after a payment request period has passed once you've provided that sufficient evidence. Thanks, Hanne. I might hand over to you for the next one.

Hanne O'Connor:

Beautiful. Thanks, Nelson. It looks like we've got a couple of good questions submitted by someone called Amanda. It says, "I didn't get to make my payment for semester one. Can I still do so? I still have the transcript." And absolutely you can pop in transcripts for previous rounds and you can request previous milestone amounts at any time up until the end of your scholarship. You're not obliged to do it as and when and you won't miss out on any of the payments. So please, absolutely submit for everything that you can in each round as it comes and we will make sure that we can pay you for whatever you're eligible for. And then the next question says, "I'm still waiting for my uni to release the transcripts for semester 2, 2024, and I don't think they'll have it to me by the 17th."

We absolutely appreciate that that is a concern for a lot of scholars at the moment. We have three payment request rounds per year and there will be another one coming in February. So for all the scholars whose timings don't quite match up with the three payment request periods, we do ask that you submit them in the next payment request period afterwards. Unfortunately, with the volume of universities that our scholars attend, there is no easy period of time in which to do each of these payment request rounds for everybody to be able to submit at the same time. So while we do appreciate that it can be a little inconvenient for some of our scholars, unfortunately, it just is a little bit inconvenient for all of our scholars, I think, rather than being fair for some and unfair for others. Thank you. That's a great question. Nelson, is there another one queued up for us?

Nelson Crossley:

I think there's one more here. I've got a question which says, "I would like to change in my university course I'm enrolled in, which is available at a different university," and they're asking about how can they request a revised funding notice. So the first thing to note on this one is the scholars must seek approval from the department prior to changing their university course. This is because the scholarship is for a CEQA recognised qualifications. So a CEQA maintains a list of approved qualifications for early childhood teaching, and you need to make sure that your chosen qualification is on this list. I believe we'll be sending out a link to this list afterwards in the pack you'll get in a week's time, and please make sure before you change your course, that it is on this list. The other thing to keep in mind is that if your course is on this list, please email it through once again to the ECE scholarships inbox, and we will be able to send you out a revised funding notice.

Another one there, Hanne.

Hanne O'Connor:

There absolutely is another one here, that's a really good one, I think. Which was, do we accept statements of account or do we need invoices from the university about tuition payments to produce funding notices? And the answer is no. We don't need those. We just need to see your academic history more than anything else. What we need to see is what you've studied and when. So a full academic transcript should cover all of the points that we need, where a statement of account, unfortunately, we'll miss out a few of the details. So while they may be very useful for this purpose, it's not something that we need. I do believe there might be another question here as well, which I might throw to you, Nelson. It is, "Why do some of my milestones show $0 on my funding notice?"

Nelson Crossley:

Yes, this is a common one we get quite a lot. So as Hanne mentioned earlier, you are only paid for units that you are actively studied or actively have studied. So for example, if you're a 23/24 scholar in our 23/24 cohort and you've got 60 credit points of RPL, you haven't actively studied those units as part of your scholarship. As soon as you start studying those units and provide evidence to us that you've completed X amount of credit points, you'll be able to start ticking through those milestones. It's important to know that in the 23/24 cohort, your RPL is paid. However, if you have not commenced studying a unit, your RPL will not be paid until your transcript has shown you've completed subjects. I think we've got another one there that I might throw to you, Hanne.

Hanne O'Connor:

Yep. Oh, I see a question there that is, "Can we request multiple milestone payments when the requests are open and can we also get request a practical payment at the same time?" And absolutely, yes, you can request multiple milestones and up to two practical unit payments. For the practical unit payments, they just need to show on your transcript as enrolled or completed, provided it's past your award date. And it does have to say enrolled. So if it's on your university plan for say, 2026, unfortunately we can't pay those. But if you are enrolled for the current or coming academic year for that unit, then absolutely, we're happy to pay that for you at that time. And it looks like there is another question here around like, "Do you offer back pay for missed payments? If I don't meet the criteria to get our funding, will we receive an email notice?" Nelson, do you feel comfortable taking that one?

Nelson Crossley:

Yeah, definitely. So the short answer is that if you didn't meet the criteria for a payment in the most recent payment request, you'll receive an email. But if you don't meet the criteria, don't worry, we open our rounds three times in a year for a reason, and this means that you'll have another opportunity to submit for payment coming up in February. We will email you immediately prior to the next round opening, and scholars can request all eligible milestone payments there during a payment request period. So essentially, this means you can request more than one. There's no limit on how many... Obviously, other than the eight that it's broken down into, there's no limit on how many you can request at a time. And as well as the practical support payment. We've just got, I think, one more question in here perhaps, Hanne.

Hanne O'Connor:

I think we've just got one more that says, "I provided all the required documents, including my transcripts, but I got an email saying that I had missing documents." So in those instances, and it can happen, like please email us at that inbox, give us your scholarship ID and as much detail as you can. We will absolutely look into this for you and let you know as much as we can from our end. We can see what you submit on SmartyGrants as well. So don't worry about going in and downloading any of your submissions. We can have a look on our end for you, and we're more than happy to do a little investigation and work out what's happened. We're really keen to work with our scholars to get you paid.

The whole purpose of our team is to support you through your scholar journey. So absolutely stay in touch with us. We really love hearing from you over the course of your scholarship because when you graduate, it really feels like a wonderful moment for us as well. So bring us on your journey and let us be part of helping you. Alrighty, I think that's all the time we have for questions at the moment. Thank you very much for being here with us tonight. We have collected any questions that didn't get answered live, and we will reach out with the answers very soon as well as the recording. And one last reminder, please, please, if you have any questions specific to how things are going with you, please reach out to ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au. Thank you very much for giving us your time this evening. I'll hand us back to Natasha who will wrap up the session.

Natasha Hudson:

Thanks very much, Hanne. Thank you, Nelson. And thank you everyone behind the scenes who's been supporting with the chats and providing information. In particular, I'd like to thank everyone who's joined during this live, but also who's watching back at a later time. Hope you've found it most useful. The important thing to remember is that there are multiple funding payment periods, so please keep that in mind. If the deadlines in terms of getting your transcripts, like we've heard in the chat, don't align up with these timeframes, there will be a future one. So please, rest assured that you'll have that opportunity down the track. And this particular payment period does close on Sunday, the 17th of November. And if you have any questions, please do email through. I know the email's in the chat and the Q&A section, so please take note of that.

If you are you having trouble finding your funding notices, please do search your junk folders. Make those emails part of your contacts, whatever you can do to ensure that you're getting those notices as soon as you can. And always... Just to build on, Hanne, your reflections, we are absolutely keen to ensure your success. So anything that we can do to improve what we're doing to tailor a response to your personal circumstances, really keen to have you reach out so that we can take that on board and provide the advice to make sure that we can get this through for you. So thanks, everyone.

Keep doing what you're doing. And it's so important, not only for yourself, your professional fulfilment, but ultimately, for the early learners across New South Wales, who ultimately, you're supporting probably already day to day, but we'll hopefully be continuing to support for many, many more years to come. So again, thanks very much. We hope to join you again soon as we delve into other really important themes and topics. So please, keep your questions and feedback coming, and we'll continue to tailor our content to get you what you need. Thanks very much.

These details are taken from transcripts supplied during onboarding, or when scholars request their Initial Payment.  

If these are incorrect, please email ecec.scholarships@det.nsw.edu.au for support. 

Milestone payments are made when scholars complete units of study during their course.  Your total award amount is divided into milestone payments based on remaining units of study to complete.  

 Each scholar’s calculation is unique to their circumstances. It is important to confirm the terms of your scholarship award in your deed of agreement when checking your funding notice. 

Academic Session: refers to a division of the year during which the relevant Higher Education Provider conducts classes. Higher Education Providers variously refer to these divisions as semesters, trimesters or terms.

ACECQA: means the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority. ACECQA is responsible for ensuring the quality and standards of early childhood education and care.

Census Date: is the date the Scholarship Holder’s enrolment is finalised by the Higher Education Provider, and they become academically and financially accountable for the unit of study.

DocuSign: is an online platform where you can securely upload, sign and return documents digitally.

ECEC: means Early Childhood Education and Care.

ECT: means Early Childhood Teaching, or Early Childhood Teacher depending on context.

Eligibility Criteria: means the required criteria that a scholar must adhere to, upon applying for a scholar and throughout the duration of being a scholarship holder, as set out in the Program Guidelines.

Funding Notice: is written notice issued by email specifying the amount and details of financial assistance to be provided to the Scholarship Holder under the scholarship program. Each Funding Notice is calculated and customised to the individual scholar’s study circumstances.

Higher Education Provider: means the Higher Education Provider with whom the Scholarship Holder is completing the approved ECT qualification. This could be a university or other vocational education and training provider, such as TAFE.

Initial Payment: is the first payment instalment made to a scholar upon proof of enrolment in an ACECQA-recognised early childhood teaching qualification past the Census Date for the Scholarship Holder’s current academic study period. A full, unofficial transcript is also required to show completed units and any recognition of prior learning.

Milestone Payment: is a payment instalment of the Scholarship Award and is paid based on completion of units of study. Scholars must meet credit point requirements and provide proof of completion, such as a university transcript, to qualify for a milestone payment.

Official Documentation, Official Evidence, Official Results: refers to documents, evidence and results issued by the Higher Education Provider on their letterhead.

Official Transcript: is a transcript or document issued by your Higher Education Provider on their letterhead that details your academic history, including courses, grades and degrees obtained.

Practical Unit Support Payment: provides financial support to scholars for their practical units, when the financial burden of study may be higher. Practical units are integral hands-on learning opportunities that take place in services, and may also be known as professional placements, practical sessions, or practical experiences.

Program Guidelines: means the scholarship Program Guidelines referred to in documentation, such as the 2023-24 Early Childhood Teaching Scholarships Program - Early Childhood Teaching Scholarships Program Please note each scholarship program will have its own set of guidelines and scholars are required to familiarise themselves with this.

Qualification: means the qualification to be completed by the Scholarship Holder as specified in their Deed, or as otherwise recorded. The qualification must be an ECT qualification (e.g. Bachelor, Master, Graduate Certificate or Graduate Diploma) recognised by ACECQA on the approved qualifications list - Check your qualification is NQF approved.

These qualifications are available through universities or other vocational education and training providers, such as TAFE.

Scholarship: is financial assistance provided to eligible scholars to support their education and to reduce the financial burden of study. It is not a direct reimbursement of tuition fees. Eligible scholars are those who intend to be or who are employed in eligible NSW early childhood education and care services, including centre-based preschool, mobile preschool, long day care or family day care.

Scholarship Award: is the total amount of funding the scholar has been awarded based on their academic circumstances. This is calculated individually for each scholar in most programs.

Scholarship Holder: refers to the person awarded the Scholarship; also referred to as a scholar.

Scholarship ID: is personal to you and is used in tracking applications, payments, and compliance. It is usually 13 digits long and looks like 2023SCHOLXXXX. This ID is generated when you apply for your scholarship through SmartyGrants and can be found on your scholarship outcome email. It is important to reference this ID for all communications related to the scholarship.

SmartyGrants: is an online platform for submitting scholarship applications and tracking progress. It allows scholars to submit applications and upload documents. Compliance with SmartyGrants procedures is essential for meeting application requirements.

Total Qualification Requirements: means the total number of course subjects/credit points that need to be completed to attain the qualification.

Unofficial Transcript: is a student's academic record that is accessed online by the student. It may not have the official seal or signature of the institution. It is often accessible online through the student portal of their university or education provider at typically no cost to the student.