Queensland Lutheran Early Childhood Services Limited (QLECS Limited) and Queensland Lutheran Early Childhood Services Branch centrally manages eleven Community Kindergartens across Queensland, from Cairns in the far north, Kingaroy in the west, Victoria Point on the east coast and Bethania to the south. A further seven kindergartens operate as locally managed community kindergartens, two under ‘Regulations’ from the QLECS Limited Board of Directors and another five under Queensland Lutheran Early Childhood Services Branch.

Fourteen of our kindergartens are affiliated with the Crèche and Kindergarten Association (C&K), which provides a quality assurance structure and the play-based curriculum, ‘Building Waterfalls’.  C&K have operated for over 100 years in Queensland and is a well established and respected community organisation.

Affiliation requirements cover management aspects, workplace health and safety, employments conditions for staff, and financial parameters.

Kindergartens offer sessional care for children in the year prior to Prep.  The sessions are a maximum of 5.5 hours in length and the exact times of the sessions may vary from service to service, eg. 8.30am to 2.00pm or 9.00am to 2.30am.  Kindergartens operate for 41 weeks per year following the state school terms.  Kindergartens do not have pupil free days.

Many kindergartens are co-located with schools, colleges or congregations but remain under separate management.  A rental amount is paid for the use of the building and playground facilities.  Some kindergartens are single units and some are double units.  All offer two consistent groups per week which means that each unit can offer an educational programme for 44 children over the week.

The educational programme, based on the ‘Building Waterfalls’ curriculum is delivered by a qualified, registered early childhood teacher, ably assisted by a qualified kindergarten assistant.  ‘Building Waterfalls’ has four focus areas:
 1. Connecting (family, community, the natural environment, past and future)
 2. Enlarging (belonging, wellbeing, identity, respect, dignity, justice & equity)
 3. Listening (open, sensitive, values, traditions, and negotiation)
 4. Exploring (active, competent, capable, researchers, and decision makers)

The ‘community controlled’ aspect of kindergartens is provided through an elected Board of Directors for QLECS Limited, focused on sound corporate governance and strategic planning and a Community Liaison Group (CLG) with an advisory function to assist with the direction of the local service. The CLG is comprised of current parents, community representatives, school/college/congregation representatives and QLECS management personnel. For locally managed services this is done through the governance committee.