The pathway to school readiness requires collaboration across the system as a whole - between schools, services and communities, to provide an environment that ensures all children start school ready. Ready, Set, Prep! prepares children and their families for a great start to primary school, by working with community members, primary schools and early years providers to support early learning, family engagement and transition to primary school.
Merri Health
Project Ready, Set, Prep!
Amount $200,000 over two years
Date 2021
Program Community
| TRUST OBJECTIVES | PROJECT OBJECTIVES |
|---|---|
| Reducing inequality | Using targeted interventions to redress inequality for the most vulnerable children in northern Moreland |
| Building organisational capacity | Building the capacity of community and partner organisations to enable improved and expanded Early Years to Prep transition programs |
| Collaboration and partnership | Over 30 schools, kindergartens and childcare centres in northern Moreland, Moreland City Council and over 10 community services organisations |
Image Participants at a community workshop. Photo: courtesy Merri Health.
As the backbone organisation, Merri Health will build on the success of the Ready, Set Prep! pilot school readiness program to scale up the program in northern Moreland. The area is a multicultural community, with 43.1% of residents born overseas and around half of those having arrived in Australia within the last five years. Cultural diversity brings many rich benefits to the community; however, with such a high proportion of newly arrived families, many experience difficulties navigating services and the education system, which may be very different from their country of origin.
Snapshot:
- School readiness is a practical strategy to close the learning gap and improve equity in achieving lifelong learning and full developmental potential among young children.
- Ready, Set, Prep! is a highly collaborative model that is co-designed and informed by extensive community consultation and supported by over 40 participating partners.
- HMSTrust funding will enable employment of a bi/multilingual Community Engagement Officer.
- Engaging Community Champions and involving community members in working groups and governance structures will ensure strategies meet the needs of the local community.
- Scale up of the program will result in improved early years service quality and access, and continuity of learning and educational opportunities, including the improvement and expansion of primary school transition programs in at least five kindergartens and schools in Glenroy and Hadfield, over 2 years.
- Facilitation of two targeted interventions will engage the most vulnerable children in northern Moreland.
- The development of a new monitoring and evaluation framework will enable better tracking of long-term impact.