This page explains how kindergarten places are allocated and offered to children.
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- Key Dates
Stage Date Kindergarten offers
Three and four-year-old kindergarten places are allocated separately.
Every effort will be made to place my child at the same service for four-year-old kindergarten. However, there is no guarantee of this.
From August Enrolment into Kindergarten (for Casey managed kindergartens) November and December Kindergarten program begins End of January Orientation (for Casey managed kindergartens) January/February - Where is my child on the waiting list
Once you have submitted a registration, your child will be added to our waiting list. Children remain on the waiting list until they are offered a kindergarten place, or the registration is cancelled.
As the City of Casey is a large municipality there can be more children on the waiting list than there are kindergarten places available. For kindergartens that are full, vacancies are only created when an offer has been declined or expires, or a family cancels a place.
We cannot tell you where your child is placed on the waiting list as this changes daily.
- How kindergarten places are allocated
The Department of Education’s high priority criteria, along with the City of Casey’s local criteria help decide how points are allocated to a child. To ensure fair and equitable placement, the City of Casey follow these guidelines when allocating kindergarten places.
The Department of Education has developed the following criteria to identify high priority children:
- Children at risk of abuse or neglect, including Out-of-Home-Care, known to Child Protection (currently or in the past).
- Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children.
- Asylum seeker and refugee children (or parents).
- Child or parent holds a Commonwealth Health Care Card, Child Disability Health Care Card, Pensioner Concession Card, Department of Veteran Gold or White Affairs Card
- Triplets or more
- Children who have an additional need. This is defined as children who need additional assistance in order to fully participate in the kindergarten program or require a combination of services which are individually planned or have an identified specific disability or developmental delay.
The City of Casey have developed the following local criteria to identify priority children:
- Children who are in receipt of a second year of three or four-year-old kindergarten funding, and/or
- Is attending one of our funded three-year-old kindergartens listed under the City of Casey CRES
- Children of City of Casey ratepayers
Places are allocated based on a priority score, where all high priority children are allocated a place first, then the remaining available places are allocated based on the City of Casey’s local criteria.
Where children hold the same priority score, the system randomly allocates places to children to ensure that this is fair and equitable.
It’s helpful to understand that whilst commonly believed, the following points do not provide additional priority to a child, or increase the likelihood of being offered a kindergarten place:
- Listing only one kindergarten or session
- Living close to a kindergarten service (kindergartens are not zoned)
- Attending a particular kindergarten to gain admission into a particular school
- Enrolling at a particular school to gain acceptance at your preferred kindergarten
- Kindergarten offering process
We will begin offering kindergarten places in August of the year before your child is due to start kindergarten.
How offer rounds are undertaken:
- 3-year-old and 4-year-old kindergarten places are offered separately.
- Offer rounds are issued on an ongoing basis approximately every four weeks, which continues into the kindergarten year.
- If allocated a place families will receive notification by email and sms.
- If you have selected on the registration to be considered for an alternate session or service if all available places at your listed preferences are full, your child will be considered for a place at the next closest service where there are vacancies.
If you haven't received an offer
Families will be advised via email if they did not receive a kindergarten offer. Families are also invited to update or add to their kindergarten preference list, ready for the next round of offers.
Responding to your offer
Families will receive information in the offer email on how to respond to the offer and when to respond by.
If you fail to respond, your offer will be cancelled, and your child will be removed from the waitlist and will not receive future offers. If this happens, you can contact the Kindergarten Enrolments and Planning team to have your child added back onto the waiting list if you still require a place.
If a family are having difficulties accessing the link in the email they can call Council and ask for the Kindergarten Enrolment and Planning Team to respond.
- Transferring kindergarten year
If your child is born between January and April, you may have the option to transfer their year of attendance at kindergarten to the following year.
Children can only access the 3-year-old and 4-year-old kindergarten programs once, therefore a request can only be made if your child has not yet commenced in the program you are requesting to transfer.
Families who choose to transfer their child’s year of attendance can do so by emailing the Kindergarten Enrolments and Planning team.
Your child’s preferred year of attendance will then be updated in our system and once offer rounds commence for that year, your child will be considered for a place.