Arrival: Information for sessional services

Yes. Since 2025, all services are required to use Arrival to enter their program and enrolment information.

Arrival also includes functionality that enables sessional services to collect and report attendance data (see further information under Attendance Data Collection below).

KIMS will remain in use in 2026 for the following purposes:

• Historic funding reports viewed and exported
• SRF planning and acquittals

Yes. Both systems will be operating in parallel in 2026 and users will need separate logins while this is the case.

The department is strengthening user access requirements to meet best practice standards for information security. Arrival users require an individual email address with a service or provider-based domain (e.g. tilly.smith@ examplekinder.com.au).

By implementing robust security measures across multiple levels (network, data, and application) the system supports all required laws, regulations, and standards relating to security, compliance, and privacy, including government standards for protected data. These measures all work together to safeguard sensitive personal child data.

Community-based service providers will be supported to set up compliant emails through the department’s free Kindergarten IT program (operated by the State Library on behalf of the department).

Private providers can access publicly available support to register an email domain and set up a business email account.

• How to set up your own business email account | Business Victoria
• Domain Registrar | Education Services Australia

Instructions on how to identify and update non-compliant email addresses in KIMS are available for community-based providers and private providers.

Arrival uses a role-based access model with different levels of user access. This provides organisations with control over who can access different types of information at a service level and across the organisation.

The different roles in Arrival include:

• service provider administrator
• service administrator
• service provider user
• service user.

The Service Provider Administrator will is able to create and update users’ accounts, including changing their level of access.

At a service-level, the Service Administrator is also able to create and update users’ email accounts, including their level of access.

Guidance materials and resources are available on the Arrival: Guidance and resources page. Guidance and support is also available via the "Help" link at the top right-hand corner of the Arrival screen. For technical support, please contact the Arrival Helpdesk on 1800 614 810 or email Arrival.Helpdesk@education.vic.gov.au.

To safeguard sensitive personal child data, Arrival adheres to all required laws, regulation, and standards relating to security, compliance, and privacy. This is done through the use of robust security measures across multiple levels (network, data, and application).

All information is handled in accordance with the Department of Education Privacy Policy and relevant privacy legislation including the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic).

PSFO will continue to use KIMS for reporting purposes in 2026.

The Annual Confirmation process is completed in Arrival, typically opening in the first half of the year. Service providers will be notified of exact dates and timelines by the department.

Services are able to enter child and teacher/educator information into Arrival, ahead of Annual Confirmation opening.

From 2026, service providers can enter enrolment information in Arrival using the following methods:

• the rollover function: When a child is ‘rolled over’, the current enrolment record is marked as inactive and a new record for the next funding year is created. All the child details are copied across and can be updated as required. Service providers will need to enter the service offering and program model for the child.
• manual creation: where service providers will be required to enter all Three-Year-Old and Four-Year-Old Kindergarten enrolment data into Arrival manually, or
• the bulk upload function: multiple child information can be uploaded at once using the spreadsheet available in Arrival Help - Multiple child upload for enrolment data

Step-by-step guidance is available via the Help link in Arrival.

Yes, Arrival is able to identify duplicate enrolments.

Services already collect attendance data to inform local planning and to meet National Law requirements.

As part of the Preschool Reform Agreement, all states and territories have committed to collect attendance data from services offering a sessional kindergarten program (services that don’t already report attendance data to the Australian Government via the Child Care Subsidy System).

The insights gained through attendance data collection will help drive our collective efforts to support kindergarten attendance, so that all Victorian children receive the full learning and developmental benefits of a quality early childhood education.

All attendance data will be aggregated and de-identified for reporting purposes and will not be identifiable at a child, service or provider level.

The department is transitioning to using Arrival for digital attendance collection.

The way daily attendance is reported in Arrival will depend on how attendance is currently recorded at your service/s.

Services that use Arrival sign in sign out and/or paper-based records:

Arrival provides services that currently use paper-based records with digital sign in and sign out capability. This will make the sign in sign out process easier for families and tracking and reporting attendance easier for services.

Services are reminded to keep using paper-based records during the transition period to ensure necessary access to attendance information for operational requirements.

We will work closely with services currently using paper-based methods, including consideration of any local needs in using the Arrival system to record daily attendance data.

Training and guidance materials are available to support services using digital sign in and sign out. Ongoing helpdesk support is also available.

Services that already use digital sign in sign out software for attendance:

Many sessional services are already using sign in sign out software. 

The department has established an integration solution for third-party software. We are continuing to work with the most commonly used software providers and will work with all third-party software providers that express an interest to integrate with Arrival.

Once the integration between software providers and Arrival has been set up, attendance data will flow directly into Arrival, or you may need to follow the directions from your software provider on how to submit your attendance data.

The following software providers have been integrated with Arrival to date:

• Kidsoft
• EnrolNow
• Xplor
• Qikkids
• Xap
• OWNA

Long day care services that already provide attendance data to the Australian Government via the Child Care Subsidy System (CCSS), are not required to provide attendance data through Arrival. 

For long day care services that offer sessional programs, the department will work with long day care service providers to determine the best way to collect attendance data for children in sessional programs that do not have their attendance recorded in the CCSS.

Victorian attendance data collected via CCSS, together with the sessional attendance data from Arrival will form a statewide attendance data set for national reporting.

As we move towards the full transition of using Arrival for digital attendance data collection, services using Arrival’s sign in sign out functionality are reminded to keep using paper-based records to ensure necessary access to attendance information for operational requirements.

The department is continuing to address feedback before paper-based collection methods can be replaced.

Funding will continue as normal.

Attendance data is being collected to support understanding and inform strategies for improvement and will have no bearing on kindergarten funding for services.