Supporting Educational Leaders Under A New VECTEA: From Compliance to Best Practice

As the education and care sector prepares for the implementation of the new Victorian Early Childhood Teachers and Educators Agreement, there is an opportunity to rethink not just compliance, but how we meaningfully support the role of Educational Leaders in early childhood settings.

In previous VSKEA posts, including our analysis of Educational Leaders under VECTEA 2020 Clause 45 and our reflections on what makes a pedagogical leader in 2025, we explored both the intent and the evolving expectations of leadership in early childhood. With change on the horizon, it is time to ask: how do we protect and empower Educational Leaders to deliver the best outcomes for children, families, teams and services?

Why This Matters

Educational leadership is not an optional extra. It is a central driver of pedagogy, culture, inclusion and continuous quality improvement. Regulators, researchers and services all recognise that strong pedagogical leadership correlates with stronger outcomes for children. Yet in practice, many Educational Leaders are stretched across competing demands. They juggle compliance requirements, curriculum oversight, mentoring staff, supporting inclusion, engaging families and contributing to strategic planning. In many services, this work is undertaken without clearly allocated time or formal recognition. Without intentional support, the risk is predictable: burnout, diluted impact and inequity between services of different sizes and contexts.

Learning from Scalable Models

Some larger providers have attempted to systematise Educational Leader time by scaling leadership hours according to service size and complexity. Rather than applying a flat expectation across all services, this approach recognises that a service with 30 children operates very differently from one with 120.

Under this kind of model, larger services receive proportionally more Educational Leader time. Services supporting higher levels of inclusion or complexity may receive additional resourcing. Expectations are clearer and leadership is treated as core business, not an add on. While structures differ across the sector, this approach offers a useful example of how leadership time can be intentionally aligned to enrolment numbers and service context, rather than left to local negotiation or absorbed informally.

A VECTEA Aligned Education Leader Allocation Model

With a new VECTEA on the horizon, there is an opportunity to formalise a fair and transparent framework for Educational Leader resourcing. One possible model could include enrolment based allocation bands. For example, services with up to 30 enrolments might have a minimum allocation of leadership hours each week, with additional hours added as enrolments increase in defined increments. This creates clarity and recognises that pedagogical oversight scales with service size. This may look like:

Enrolments Minimum EL Hours per Week

0–30 5 hours

31–60 10 hours

61–90 15 hours

91–120 20 hours

120+ +5 hours per 30 enrolments

This reflects capacity needed, not just compliance box-ticking. In addition, complexity factors should be considered. Services with higher proportions of children with additional needs, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, or rural and remote contexts may require supplementary Educational Leader time to ensure equity of quality outcomes.

Importantly, leadership should not only be recognised in time allocation but also in remuneration. An Educational Leader allowance, similar in principle to leadership allowances in other industrial instruments, would formally acknowledge the expertise, responsibility and relational work embedded in the role. This would support attraction and retention of qualified leaders and reinforce that pedagogical leadership is valued professional work.

Funding the Model Ensuring Equity Across Service Types

Any discussion of scaling Educational Leader time must also address funding realities across different service models. Large providers may be able to distribute leadership costs across enrolment based fee structures and internal overhead systems. However, many standalone sessional kindergartens operate primarily within government funding frameworks. For these services, additional leadership time cannot simply be absorbed without affecting sustainability.

If we believe that pedagogical leadership drives quality, its resourcing should not depend solely on a service’s financial flexibility. Possible pathways under a new VECTEA could include embedding Educational Leader time within per child funding formulas, allowing Early Years Management organisations to pool and strategically allocate leadership resources across multiple services, or introducing a dedicated Educational Leader loading aligned to enrolments and complexity.

Without structured funding recognition, increased leadership expectations risk deepening inequity between services. A thoughtful funding approach would instead ensure that all children, regardless of service type, benefit from strong pedagogical leadership.

What This Could Mean in Practice

A clear and funded framework for Educational Leaders would provide transparency for services and governing committees. It would create realistic workload expectations and reduce the risk of leadership being performed on top of full teaching loads. For educators, it would mean greater access to mentoring, reflective practice and curriculum development support. For children and families, it would strengthen consistency, inclusion and quality improvement. For the workforce, it would send a clear message that leadership is not an informal extra, but a protected and professional responsibility.

Leadership as Quality Not a Footnote

Educational Leaders sit at the heart of quality early childhood education. The new VECTEA presents a genuine opportunity to move beyond minimal compliance and embed leadership protections that reflect contemporary expectations. By aligning leadership time to enrolments and complexity, recognising the role through allowance structures and ensuring funding frameworks support equitable implementation, we can create conditions where Educational Leaders are set up to succeed.

The question is not whether Educational Leaders are important. The question is whether the new VECTEA will provide the structural support required for them to lead well.

Tammy Lawlor
VSKEA Founder