pre-school field officer

The Pre-School Field Officer’s (PSFO) role is to support early childhood teachers and educators to build their skills, knowledge and confidence to plan for and include all children. The PSFO program actively builds capacity in those early childhood educators directly working with children every day. This “with and through others” approach recognises that those who are with the child the most will have a greater impact on the child’s development. Capacity building ensures that the early childhood teachers and educators gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to embed learning and developmental opportunities that meet the diverse needs of all children within the program. This includes responding to children with additional needs and providing for their inclusion in the everyday learning opportunities, activities and routines.

Supports to educators may include:

• provision of information and resources to inform programming for a child with additional needs
• supporting a kindergarten educator’s identification of a child with additional needs
• supporting a kindergarten educator’s confidence and capacity to respond to a parent’s concerns regarding their child’s development
• provision of planning support that respects, acknowledges and complements the educator’s expertise in supporting children’s learning and development
• coaching of an educator to assist with planning and implementation of an inclusive kindergarten program that supports a child with additional needs
• building professional partnerships and collaborative relationships with kindergarten educators
• modelling of specific skills, suggestions and strategies with educators
• assistance to an educator to embed child specific teaching and learning approaches and opportunities into the everyday kindergarten environment
• identification of referral pathways and facilitation of linkages for families to the range of child and family supports, including more specialised assessment and services where indicated

Our Pre-School Field officers are with you all the way.

If you are a pre-school educator and would like to receive our newsletter about the PSFO program please email us on psfo@pinarc.org.au and we can add you to our mailing list.

Our PSFO team have created a Microsoft TEAMS chat platform for kindergarten teachers to connect with one another and further information is available via this link:

kindergarten teachers chat information

The Victorian Government has provided a fact sheet on the PSFO program and it is available via this link:

pre-school field officer fact sheet

Our PSFO referral form is available here:

pre-school field officer referral form