Works complete at St Paul’s Lutheran kinder

NEW facilities at a Grovedale kinder are bigger and better and will help more families get access to important early childhood services, thanks to support from a state government grant.

South Barwon MP Darren Cheeseman visited the recently completed expansion project at St Paul’s Lutheran Kindergarten, funded by a $816,000 grant through the Victorian government’s Building Blocks Program in 2020 and with a total project cost of $1.08 million.

The project expanded the yard, built an extra classroom and increased the licensed capacity of the service by 43.

This enables increased hours for the 44 existing three-year-old places in line with new Victorian Department of Education and Training funding arrangements from this year.

The project allows St Paul’s to offer extended hours care, while the existing bathroom and kitchen have been altered to cater for the extra room.

A consultation room allows children/families to get access to health and support services onsite, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, and developmental assessments.

The upgraded facility at the kinder in Torquay Road was officially opened and blessed on March 1.

“Every child in South Barwon deserves access to the best kinder, so they can get the best start to their education journey, and that’s exactly what we have delivered with the St Paul’s Lutheran Kinder upgrade,” Mr Cheeseman said.

In an Australian first, the Victorian government has invested almost $5 billion to deliver a full 15 hours of three-year-old kinder to children across the state over this decade, with the roll-out beginning in selected areas in 2020 and expanding in 2022 to support five hours of three-year-old kindergarten statewide.

As part of this roll-out, the Victorian government is co-investing $1.68 billion with the early childhood sector to build and expand kindergarten facilities across the state.

Labor says it is also ensuring that every new Victorian primary school that was set to open from 2021 will have a kindergarten on-site or next door, reducing the burden on parents by helping them ditch the “dreaded double drop-off”.

“We want every Victorian child to have access to fantastic early years education, close to home, because we know how vital it is in setting our kids up for the rest of their lives,” Minister for Early Childhood Ingrid Stitt said.

To find out more about the Building Block grants, head to the Victorian School Building Authority’s website.