Preschool enrolment

In South Australia, 'preschool' and 'kindergarten' are the same. Children can attend preschool the year before they start school. Aboriginal children and children in care can access preschool from 3 years of age.

Government preschools support your child’s learning and development to give them a great start in life. Through play-based learning, exploration and experimentation, your child is set up to thrive when they’re ready for school.

To start the enrolment process you must complete a preschool registration of interest form. This includes enrolment for our new mid-year intake, which is now open!

Start the enrolment process in 3 easy steps

1. Confirm you child is ready to start
If your child turns 4:

before 1 May 2023, you can register your child to start preschool in term 1 of 2023.
between 1 May to 31 October 2023, you can register your child to start preschool in term 3 of 2023 through the mid-year intake.

Find out when your children can start preschool with our age calculator.

2. Choose a preschool
Your child can attend your local preschool, or you can choose non-local if there's space. Find your local preschool if you're not sure. Priority is given to children in the local catchment area.

3. Submit a preschool registration of interest form
Fill in the form and submit to your local preschool. Wait to receive an enrolment offer via email or letter from the preschool.

To register for the mid-year intake, submit the registration of interest form by 30 September 2022. As mid-year intake is being implemented for the first time in 2023, you may not receive an enrolment offer until term 1, 2023.

Download the form (PDF 207KB) More about registering Age calculator

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Why choose a government preschool?

We have some of the highest quality education in the nation with 74% of our government preschools rated as exceeding the National Quality Standard.

Our preschools offer responsive, culturally inclusive and accessible programs and services that support and reflect the needs of local communities.

With almost 400 government preschools in South Australia, there's bound to be 1 near you.

Supporting your child's diverse needs

Government preschools provide specialised support for children, including:

bilingual support for children who speak minimal English
health and disability support
programs for children with hearing, speech or language impairment and children with developmental delay or disability.

Video transcript

It’s helped him a lot. When I first bought him here, he had problems with his speech. He was very shy, very withdrawn, didn’t like to interact with other people.

Bringing him to kindy has actually helped him build connections with the workers, with other children. His speech is a lot better and he’s a lot more confident. Getting him around kids his own age has actually brought him out of his shell.