11th May, 2026

Dear Seawinds families,

Just a short update this week as I am on leave, but I really wanted to let everyone know that our Assessment and Rating result has come through and we are now an Exceeding rated service! This is such a huge achievement on the part of our whole team, including our governing Board, without their support and belief in us, we would not be able to do many of the things we do to improve and maintain quality and safety.

I am particularly proud as it is notoriously difficult to achieve an Exceeding rating as a service that offers long day care and kindergarten as compared to a stand-alone sessional kindergarten. There are many more requirements, regulations and considerations for services like ours which provide care and education for babies, toddlers and preschoolers over a full, 10- or 11-hour day than a more limited hours, 3- and 4-year-old kindergarten. So a huge congratulations to our dedicated Minnows and Sea Stars team as well as our kindergarten team for working together so beautifully to create programs and environments that are of a consistently high standard for children aged 6m to 6y. Less than 20% of services that offer 0-5 long day care in Victoria have an Exceeding rating, there is only one other Exceeding long day care and kindergarten service in our local area.

The Assessment and Rating process is certainly not perfect, but it is the best tool we have for assessing the quality of early childhood programs in Australia. As every study that has been done shows, high-quality early education is one of the clearest indicators of better health, education and social outcomes, society-wide. I always knew the team at Seawinds were providing high quality care and education and it is wonderful to have that formally acknowledged.

Thank you to all the parents and family members who wished us good luck! It’s really your and your children’s opinions that are the most important, at the end of the day.

With that, on to Staff News!

Kiera will be on leave on Monday and Tuesday. She will be replaced by Ruth.

In exciting news, the whole Minnows team (Lucy-Anne, Megan, Pru, Piper and Jaysun) will be off-site on Tuesday. We have been supported to send them all to the upcoming Semann & Slattery Infants and Toddlers conference at Rydges Hotel in Melbourne. This is an amazing opportunity for our under-three educators to share ideas, be inspired and grow in their knowledge and practice with professional peers. We are very grateful to the support of Anthony Semann of Semann & Slattery early childhood consultancy for making this possible.

Part of the difficulty of whole-team professional development, which is the most effective, is maintaining consistency of care when the usual room educators are away. As someone in early childhood leadership, I see this used as a reason/excuse not to invest in whole team learning as it is just ‘too hard’. Fortunately at Seawinds we have excellent staff ready to step in and support, so on Tuesday, the Minnows team will consist of Jackie, Emma and Ash, all very familiar to the children. Lucy-Anne will leave them well-briefed and prepared and I will be opening with Jackie so I will see you all for breakfast!

Have a wonderful weekend and a very happy Mothers Day to all who celebrate.

Anna and the (Exceeding) Seawinds Team