2025 Preschool Census

The NSW Department of Education will be undertaking the Annual Preschool Census from 21 July to 22 August 2025. The representative period will be 28 July to 8 August 2025.

The purpose of the Census is to provide data for government reporting and to inform your funding levels for 2026.

There will be minor changes to response fields in 2025 including:

• Aboriginal English included as a Language Background Other than English for children.

• For children with multiple disabilities, there is the option for services to select a maximum 4.

Preparing for the Census

• Ensure that your Early Childhood Contract Management System (ECCMS) SP-Admin account holder can log in to ECCMS successfully using their myID.
• Review the following pages within ECCMS:
  • Main Service Provider page - ensure that service details and contacts are up to date on the Main Details tab, Contacts and Address tabs.
  • Each Funding Specification page - ensure that details and contacts are up to date on the Main, Contacts and Address tabs.
• Confirm that you have collected supporting documentation from families regarding eligibility for equity loadings to ensure your Start Strong funding is calculated appropriately. For more information on equity loadings see Appendix 1.1 Program Payment in the program guidelines.

Completing consent forms

Community preschools and mobile preschools need to complete 2 types of consent forms, one for each staff member (PDF 150 KB) and one for each child (PDF 134 KB) upon enrolment.

Consent forms allow for the use and disclosure of personal information to support the department’s governmental functions. This may include monitoring the funding programs and reporting purposes. Services are advised to renew the consent form every year a child attends.

During the Census

During the Census you will need to:

• Enter enrolment data into ECCMS from the representative fortnight which runs from 28 July to 8 August 2025.
• Ensure your service's data is accurate and submitted by 23 August 2025.

Download the Quick Reference Guide (PDF 907 KB), or access the web version of the Quick Reference Guide, for step by step instructions on completing the Census.

How to get help

Entering data into ECCMS

Read the tips in:

• ECCMS - tool tips and help text can be assessed in ECCMS by either hovering over or clicking on the relevant '?'.
• Annual Preschool Census - Quick Reference Guide (PDF 928 KB).
• Online version of the 2025 Quick Reference Guide

Contact our Information and Enquiries team by:

• calling 1800 619 113
  
• emailing ececcollection@det.nsw.edu.au.

Logging into ECCMS and funding queries

Contact our Information and Enquiries team by:

• calling 1800 619 113
  
• emailing ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au.

Preschool Reform Agreement requirements

The Preschool Reform Agreement (PRA) is a performance-based funding agreement with the Australian Government that supports the delivery of 600 hours of quality preschool for children in the year before school.

In 2024, the PRA requires that the NSW Government use the attendance data collected in the Census to calculate the attendance performance of NSW preschools for the 2024 calendar year and share these calculations with the Australian Government.

The attendance performance of NSW preschools will be used to inform the setting of 2025 attendance targets under the PRA.

Given these new requirements in 2024, please ensure care and accuracy in your completion of the Census.