The Northern Schools Early Years Cluster Inc. (NSEY) is a not-for-profit Early Years Management organisation, based in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Currently we manage 17 early childhood education and care services in total, across the municipalities of Merri-bek, Hume, Melbourne and the Macedon Ranges, on Wurundjeri land.

The NSEYC was recently honoured with two Victorian Early Years Awards (2023):

• The Improving Access and Participation Award, for Fast-tracking 15 hours of Three-Year-Old Kindergarten for children at risk, and
• The Minister’s Award, for our K-6 model that supports continuity of learning for children.

You can read more about the Awards here: https://www.vic.gov.au/victorian-early-years-awards-winners

Sign up to receive our termly newsletter, the NSEYC Buzz:

Our purpose and values

The NSEYC’s purpose is to Love a Life of Learning and Living. Our values are Trust, Respect, Relationships and Curiosity, and these values inform everything we do. We specialise in delivering high-quality early learning programs in close partnership with families, schools and the broader community, as we know this has enormous benefits for children’s lifelong learning. Most of our early childhood services are located on school sites. Our Kindergarten to Year 6 (K-6) model aims to make it easier for families to be involved in their children’s learning, support collaboration between the kindergarten and Foundation teachers and provide a continuity of learning for children from early childhood through to school. Our educational philosophy includes a focus on authentic relationships to support individual children’s wellbeing and development, with a strong emphasis on learning through play in nature.

NSEYC acknowledges the Wurundjeri people, traditional custodians of the land on which we work and learn, and we pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We continue on our learning journey to Reconciliation.

Learn more about the NSEYC by watching this video.

Our history

The NSEYC Inc. was formed by members of the Broadmeadows Primary School’s Principal Network. This select group and the early year’s staff working in the local area have a long history of best practice and establishing innovative programs. Their vision in developing this cluster was to continue to support local families and meet changing community needs by providing an instrument that would be able to facilitate the introduction of 15 hours of kindergarten, promote and improve kindergarten attendance, attract and retain kindergarten staff, develop collegiate relationships between teaching professionals and ensure that the kindergartens were financially viable.

The NSEYC Inc. recognized that a central body with a robust governance structure and expertise in managing kindergarten services could relieve the burden on school councils and committees, create attractive employment opportunities, create stronger and useful links between existing services, provide a commitment to the education of kindergarten aged children and their families, promote the benefits of kindergarten within the local area, explore how kindergartens and how primary schools can work together to address issues of school readiness and transition, allow teachers to teach and ensure parents can participate in their child’s kindergarten experience.

Our organisation’s sole purpose is about improving outcomes for the children.

Our Commitment to Child Safety

The Northern Schools Early Years Cluster Inc.  is committed to child safety.

We want children to be safe, happy and empowered.

We support and respect all children, as well as our staff and volunteers.

We are committed to the safety, participation and empowerment of all children.

We have zero tolerance of child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently with our robust policies and procedures.

We have legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when we are worried about a child’s safety, which we follow rigorously.

Northern Schools Early Years Cluster Inc. is committed to preventing child abuse and identifying risks early, and removing and reducing these risks.

The Northern Schools Early Years Cluster Inc.  has robust human resources and recruitment practices to reduce the risk of child abuse by new and existing board members, staff and volunteers.

The Northern Schools Early Years Cluster Inc.  is committed to regularly training and educating our board members, staff and volunteers on child abuse risks.

We are committed to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children, the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, and to providing a safe environment for children with a disability.

We have specific policies and procedures in place that support our board members, staff and volunteers to achieve these commitments.