For a mobile preschool to be eligible for funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding program they must:

• be operated by a not-for-profit provider
• be an approved early childhood education and care service under either the Children (Education and Care Services National Law Application) Act 2010 (NSW) or the Children (Education and Care Services) Supplementary Provisions Act 2011 (NSW) and the related regulations;
• deliver an early childhood education program designed by a degree qualified early childhood teacher in accordance with The Early Years Learning Framework under the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education);
• operate predominantly in Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote areas of NSW as measured using the 2011 Accessibility and Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA +) Remoteness Classifications;
• operate from venue(s) that are not purpose built centre based preschools, or operate as a ‘pack away' service at one or more venue(s);
• operate in areas where centre based preschools and long day cares with preschool programs are not readily available.
• execute and comply with the Terms and Conditions of the Early Childhood Education Grants Program;
• accept and comply with the Early Childhood Outcomes Commissioned Programs – Funding Agreement – Terms and Conditions – 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025 (Terms and Conditions).

Mobile preschools must exercise best efforts to reach a minimum of five funded children enrolled at each venue. Refer to section ‘Child Eligibility Criteria’ for more information.

Mobile Preschool Funding will not be provided for enrolments that are receiving an approved child care service under the Child Care Subsidy provided by the Australian Government.

Mobile preschools which operate solely or predominantly in Major Cities of NSW are not eligible to be funded under this program. Mobile preschools in these areas can receive funding under the Start Strong for Community Preschools program, subject to Start Strong eligibility being met.

To be eligible for funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding program, enrolled children need to be:

• at least 3 years old on or before 31 July 2025 (the child must have a birthdate on, or before, 31 July 2022)
• attending an early childhood education program provided by the mobile preschool during that preschool year
• not be in compulsory schooling.

Although all children aged 3 years and above are eligible for funding, please consider priority of access guidelines when making enrolment decisions. See ‘Priority of access’ for further information.

Children who are 6 years old will be eligible for funding. Where required, a Certificate of Exemption (PDF 1.22MB) from compulsory schooling must be in place.

The department does not take citizenship and residency status into consideration to determine eligibility for funding for children under the Mobile Preschool Funding program.

JEFF

Thank you for taking the time to watch this video on the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program. In this series of videos on this page, we will be discussing changes to the upcoming 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program. My name is Jeff Wong and I am a Senior Delivery Officer working with the department to deliver the Mobile Preschool Funding program.

The intent of these videos is to provide you with further detail about changes to the Mobile Preschool Funding program ahead of the upcoming Q&A session. We understand that mobile preschool providers are extremely busy, so the updates to the 2025 guidelines will be spread across multiple videos for you to watch and review in your own time.

I acknowledge that I am recording this video from the lands of the Burramattagal people of the Darug Nation. I also acknowledge the ongoing custodians of the various lands upon which you all work today, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people watching this video. I pay respects to elders, past and present, as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

Before we get stuck into the content, I'd like to note that the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program guidelines are going to look significantly different compared to previous years, and provide some context for why this is. As you may have noticed, the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program guidelines are significantly longer and some of the sections have been moved around or expanded upon.

There are multiple reasons for this. For example, the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program guidelines have been updated to align more closely with other similar funded programs that the department delivers, such as the Start Strong for Community Preschools program.

Many sections that appeared in the 2024 program guidelines are still present. However, they may have moved and or had more detail added to them. This added detail hopefully provides you with more clarity about specific responsibilities as a participant of the program. Much of the detail that has been added to the 2025 program guidelines has also been added, due to the requirements that all grants funded by the New South Wales Government must follow the New South Wales Grant Administration Guide. The New South Wales Grants Administration Guide aims to ensure that all grants provided by the New South Wales Government are executed fairly and with transparency.

With that explained, let's have a quick look at a high level program overview of the Mobile Preschool Funding program and its funding streams. The Mobile Preschool Funding program is part of the New South Wales Government's initiative to increase enrolment in quality preschool education. The program provides funding to eligible mobile preschools in regional, rural and remote New South Wales to support services in delivering affordable preschool for 3 to 5 year old children.

Funding is provided in two streams - program payments and fee relief payments, both of which are made directly to services. Fee relief is then passed on to eligible families accessing fee relief at the service. As per the spending rules in the program guidelines, program payment funding can be used for operating expenses such as employee payments, educational resources, facility management, for example, rent, maintenance, upgrades, cleaning and languages or cultural programs and technology costs, as well.

Fee relief funding is to be used to reduce the daily fees as much as possible for 600 hours of enrolments per year for eligible children accessing fee relief at the service. The graphic on the bottom left of the screen shows a data reporting and funding cycle. This begins with entering service and child level data into the Annual Preschool Census, which informs funding calculations for the following calendar year.

For example, funding in 2025 will be based on the 2024 census that services completed in August 2024. Mid-year completion of the census provides time for funding calculations to take place, as well as government reporting, including requirements under the Preschool Reform Agreement. Once funding allocations are finalised, services receive a funding letter and must accept the funding agreement, including the Terms and Conditions and program guidelines, before receiving quarterly payments throughout the calendar year.

Reporting under the Mobile Preschool Funding program also requires that services acquit funding received through annual financial accountabilities. Services may report on a calendar year or financial year cycle, and are notified when acquittals are due for the previous funding period. Financial acquittals are also the mechanism for the surplus and refund process, which will be covered in a following video.

Thank you for taking the time to watch this video. We hope this has been informative for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us using the methods on the screen now (1800 619 113 or ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au). And thank you again for your time and more so for the valuable work and impact you have on our early learners in New South Wales, as well as their families and communities in mobile preschool provision where they're needed most.

JEFF

This video looks at the upcoming changes to SEIFA that may impact your services' program funding allocations. Since the Mobile Preschool Funding program started, funding calculations used 2011 SEIFA information obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. However, to ensure that the information the department uses is equitable and accurate for 2025, the Mobile Preschool funding program will be using a more up to date iteration of the SEIFA data set.

In 2025, the Mobile Preschool Funding program will move to using 2021 SEIFA information, also known as SEIFA deciles. This change brings the Mobile Preschool Funding program into alignment with other funded programs delivered by the department, such as the Start Strong for Community Preschools program. The 18 SEIFA bands have been converted to 10 SEIFA deciles, and the funding rates have been scaled accordingly to support equitable funding distribution. This change will not affect maximum funding rates.

To support services through the SEIFA classification change, the department will implement transition arrangements for the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program. This means that services that would have received a reduction in funding due to the transition to 2021 SEIFA classifications will instead be funded under the existing SEIFA bands for 2025. This means that no service's funding will be negatively impacted by these changes in 2025. These services will then transition to 2021 SEIFA deciles in 2026. Providers will receive more information about how the SEIFA changes will impact their services in their 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding program funding letters.

Thank you for watching this video. We hope this has been informative for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us using the details on the screen (1800 619 113 or ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au). Thank you again for your time and more so for the valuable work and impact you have on our early learners in New South Wales, as well as their families and communities in mobile preschool provision where they're needed most.

JEFF

In this video, we will be looking at the process for surplus and reserved fee relief funds. The fee relief payments under the Mobile Preschool Funding program aims to reduce the cost of early childhood education and care to families in the form of a fee pass-through. Providers must expend the fee relief payment in the following order.

1. Providers must reduce the daily fees as much as possible for 600 hours per year of enrolments for all eligible children, accessing fee relief at the service apportioned across the preschool year. Where there are fee relief funds remaining following the reduction of daily fees for 600 hours per year of preschool education to eligible children, these remaining funds are considered surplus fee relief funds.

2. Providers must use surplus fee relief funds in the first instance to reduce the cost of additional charges to families accessing fee relief at the service. Additional charges may include, but are not limited to, charges for enrolment or administration, resources, excursions/incursions, and maintenance.

3. If any surplus fee relief funds remain after all fees and or charges are reduced to zero for families accessing fee relief, providers may then choose to allocate any remaining surplus fee relief funds to reducing the cost of enrolment above 600 hours per year. For example, third day fees or the operating expenses of the service in line with the program payment spending rules in the program guidelines. Providers should apportion the fee relief payments to families across the preschool year in line with funding payments or invoicing. For example, quarterly or per term.

Now let's have a look at reserved fee relief funds. Reserved fee relief funds are different to surplus fee relief funds.

Reserved fee relief refers to the portion of fee relief funding that a service has received that can't be used because they don't have enough children claiming fee relief. To reiterate, a service's fee relief funding is based on the number of enrolments they recorded in the previous year's census. If you have fewer enrolments this year compared to what you recorded in last year's census, you might not be able to spend all of your fee relief funding.

For example, you might have noted that you had 20 enrolments in the 2024 annual preschool census. So the department gave you 20 enrolments worth of fee relief funding for 2025. However, let's say you only had 15 enrolments in 2025. You provided them with fee relief, but then you had 5 enrolments' worth of fee relief that you couldn't allocate.

This 5 enrolments' worth of fee relief funding is considered reserved fee relief. Reserved fee relief funds need to be returned to the department at the end of the program period, either by transfer or offset, depending on what's most convenient for you.

Let's take a look at another example of fee funding in action across a year.

In 2023, Happy Learners Preschool reported 25 children enrolled for 600 hours or more in the annual preschool census. This data determined their fee relief payment for 2024.

So in Term 1, Happy Learners received funding for 25 children totalling $4,220 per child or $1,055 per child per term. Only 20 children claimed fee relief, leaving 5 places of fee relief funding to allocate as reserved fee relief funds.

In Term 2, with 2 new enrolments claiming fee relief, Happy Learners now had 22 children receiving fee relief and 3 places as reserved fee relief funds.

In Term 3, when a child left in Week 4, the rest of that term was placed aside as reserved funds and new enrolments in Week 7 meant the recently reserved funds were allocated to this child. The funds for Week 5 and 6 became surplus, and then when another child left in Week 8, leaving 2 weeks of reserve funds, these also became surplus.

In Term 4, Happy Learners started with 21 children claiming fee relief and 4 reserved places. No enrolment changes occurred during Term 4.

At the end of the calendar year, the reserved funds are kept aside and returned to the department, and the service expended the surplus funds.

Thank you for watching this video. We hope this has been informative for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us using the details on the screen (1800 619 113 or ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au). Thank you again for your time and more so for the valuable work and impact you have on our early learners in New South Wales, as well as their families and communities in mobile preschool provision where they're needed most.

JEFF

This video looks at the surplus and refunds process for the 2025 Mobile Preschool Funding Program. We encourage providers to expend all annual funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding program in accordance with the spending rules. However, we understand that sometimes providers may still have a surplus at the end of their reporting period. Services are allowed to retain surpluses under a threshold, though you can still return the surplus if you wish to do so. As outlined in the table, the threshold is currently set at 10% of your service's annual program payment funding, or $30,000, whichever is higher.

If your surplus is over 10% or $30,000, these funds may need to be returned to the department. Where services that have a surplus above the threshold have an operational need to retain the surplus, they can submit a form requesting to do so, outlining how they will spend the surplus in line with the program objectives, spending rules and expenditure timeline. Providers will need to complete a form through SmartyGrants.

The department will consider these requests to retain surplus and advise providers of the outcome. Services currently completing their financial year accountabilities may have seen new fields added in regard to the surplus and refunds process. As such, it is important that you fill in the acquittal form as accurately as possible. Should you have questions about the accountability process or form, please reach out to us.

Before we look at some examples, please note that the department will review these guidelines and surplus thresholds annually to ensure alignment with program funding objectives.

Let's take a look at two examples to make things a little bit clearer.

In example 1, we have a service who received $380,000 in program funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding program from the department. Noting that this amount does not include other income such as fees, donations or other funding. It may include surplus fee relief, as surplus fee relief can be used for operational expenses in the same way as program payment funds. However, it does not include reserved fee relief. 10% of $380,000 is $38,000 as we can see in the table.

At the end of the reporting period, Service A had a surplus of $27,000. Since this is below the 10% threshold, this service may choose to retain all of the surplus without having to fill in a form. Instead, they will indicate their wish to retain the surplus in the accountability form.

In example 2, we have Service B that has received funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding program in the amount of $460,000, which leads to a surplus threshold of $46,000. At the end of the reporting period, Service B has a surplus of $52,000, which is above the 10% threshold.

If Service B wishes to retain the surplus amount above the threshold, therefore the $6,000, they will be required to submit a form outlining their need to retain the surplus. The accountability form provides options to indicate the service's intention regarding the surplus.

Thank you for watching this video. We hope this has been informative for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via the details on the screen now (1800 619 113 or ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au).

Thank you again for your time, and more so for the valuable work and impact you have on our early learners in New South Wales, as well as their families and communities in mobile preschool provision where they needed most.