From Suzie
Dear Families,
Welcome to the 2025 Autumn Education and Care Newsletter.
The beginning of the year at Lady Gowrie Tasmania (LGT) was a busy time as we welcomed all new children, families and educators into our community. Our dedicated teams worked tirelessly getting to know the children and their families so they can support children’s ongoing learning, development and wellbeing.
Working in partnerships with families is essential to achieving our vision of providing high quality, inclusive and safe education and care services for children across Tasmania. I take this opportunity to thank our families and everyone in our teams for working together to provide the foundations for such a positive start to 2025!
FEDERAL BUDGET & ELECTION ANNOUNCEMENTS
It was pleasing to see the government’s commitment to the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector was reinforced in the recent 2025-26 Federal Budget announcement. The focus was firmly on investing in every stage of education with the Treasurer stating, ‘this all starts with early childhood education and care’.
LGT fully supports the Government’s commitment to building a universal early childhood education and care system where every child is eligible for at least 3 days per week of subsidised early education and care and where early education and care is simple, affordable and accessible for every family.
The Board and Senior Leadership Team look forward to unpacking what the 2025-26 Federal Budget means for LGT and our children and families. For more information about the budget announcement please visit:
https://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MR_Federal-Budget-2025.pdf
The recent federal government election announcement provides LGT with the opportunity to actively seek opportunities for federal government grants and funding to continue to support quality outcomes for children, our people and our sector.
On behalf of LGT and our sector, I will continue to advocate through representation on peak bodies to ensure high quality, safe and inclusive education and care remains firmly on both state and federal government agendas.
COMMITMENT TO OUR PEOPLE
Our vision of providing high quality, inclusive and safe education and care for children can only be achieved by focusing on the capability, development and wellbeing of our people. In December 2024, LGT passed on the 10% Worker Retention Grant and a 2.5% Enterprise Agreement wage increase to all eligible employees, reflecting LGT’s commitment to recognising and rewarding the collective and individual contribution of our valued people. LGT’s Wellbeing Strategy will also be rolled out this year to further support our people in their valuable work with children and families.
NEW MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE – XAP
Over the coming weeks we will be replacing Qikkids with Xap – a new, all-in-one education and care management software package. This new software will simplify many of our current enrolment, account, data management and waiting list processes. Xap also has many benefits for families including managing family details, receiving communications, accessing online invoices & statements, and much more.
Families will receive regular communication via email over the coming weeks about this transition phase. The first step for families will be to activate your account with Xap and detailed instructions about how to do this will be emailed soon. This is a significant project for our education and care teams, so I thank all families in advance for their patience as our teams carefully work through this transition phase.
NEW PLANNING MODEL FOR PLAY-BASED LEARNING
Families have now received detailed information about the implementation of the new planning model within our education and care services which has seen changes to the way our educators plan and document children’s play-based learning.
The new planning model aims to support all educators to have a voice in planning for learning and aims to put children’s strengths, ideas, knowledge, culture, abilities and interests at the centre of all they do. The success of this new planning model depends on continuing strong partnerships with families and information sharing to ensure children’s learning and other needs are being met.
I would like to thank families for their patience and understanding while our teams have been carefully implementing these changes to establish a planning model that benefits everyone involved. Your feedback at this stage is very welcome so please feel free to speak with your Service Manager or educators if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement.
On behalf of our amazing team at LGT, we take this opportunity to wish all our children and families a safe and happy Easter. We hope you find time to rest, recharge and make some great memories together.
Until next time,
Suzie Jones
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
