If you live in a place like Worrigee or South Nowra and you’ve seen your suburb fill up with new families faster than the local primary school can handle, the news hits you differently even though it’s not the kind of policy announcement that makes for explosive headlines.
Free health and development checks will now be available to thousands more preschoolers throughout New South Wales. This modest but significant expansion reveals areas where the state feels its early years system has been lacking.
| Initiative Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| Program Name | Free Health and Development Checks for Preschoolers |
| Governing Body | NSW Department of Education and NSW Health |
| Lead Minister | Deputy Premier Prue Car, Minister for Education and Early Learning |
| Target Group | Children aged 3 to 5 attending public preschools |
| Total Investment in Regional Schools | $2.9 billion committed to regional school builds and upgrades |
| New Public Preschools by 2027 | 100 across NSW |
| Shoalhaven Region Preschools | Worrigee, Bomaderry, Greenwell Point, Sanctuary Point |
| Worrigee Preschool Capacity | Up to 120 children weekly |
| Worrigee Public School Opens | 2028 (Preschool opens 2027) |
| South Nowra Dwelling Growth (Past Decade) | 150 per cent increase |
The checks themselves have an ambitious scope and a straightforward design. They examine the issues that parents frequently discuss in private but seldom bring up with a general practitioner (GP): speech delays, motor skills, hearing, vision, social development, and other minor indicators that, if ignored, can influence a child’s academic trajectory long before they enter kindergarten. Teachers believe that too many students have been arriving at school late and that no one has really stopped to inquire as to why.
You can begin to grasp the scope of the change by taking a tour of one of the new preschool locations being constructed throughout Shoalhaven. The preschool will be located next to a brand-new primary school in Worrigee, where construction workers are getting ready for its 2027 opening. The community has seen a 150% increase in new homes over the previous ten years. That’s not a slight increase. That’s a change.
The claim that the previous Liberal-National government did not construct a single new public preschool during its twelve years in power has been continuously promoted by Deputy Premier Prue Car. It’s a pointed political point, but it also explains why the rollout seems more urgent than ceremonial. Families have been waiting. In many parts of the state, the system was just not designed to keep up.
It’s interesting that the health checks aren’t being offered as a stand-alone program, but rather are integrated into this expansion. Meeting kids where they are—in their preschool rooms—instead of asking parents to find a referral or wait six months for a clinic appointment might be a more sustainable strategy. A question about the workforce is also lurking in the background. In an effort to retain teachers in a field that has been losing workers since the pandemic, providers such as Only About Children have started to offer significant fee reductions to employees who have children enrolled in their programs.
South Coast Member Liza Butler has been present at nearly every announcement, discussing community consultation and artist impressions. It’s the language of local politics, but because the need is so obvious, it succeeds. You will notice the traffic issue that the new Worrigee school is intended to alleviate if you drive past Nowra Public School during pick-up time.
Whether the development checks will reach the children who most need them—those whose families don’t currently attend public preschool at all—remains to be seen. That’s the more difficult question, and the government hasn’t provided a complete response. Observing this, however, gives me the impression that something has at last begun to move. That movement may subtly alter the course of thousands of four-year-olds’ school years in NSW before anyone notices.
