What is the EYLF? A parent's guide to Australia's Early Years Learning Framework

If you are a parent whose child goes to long day care, family day care, a kinder, or a preschool in Australia, you have probably seen the letters EYLF more times than you can count. It's on the welcome pack. It's in the newsletter. It's tagged to every photo and observation in your family app. And if you are like most parents, you've nodded along without quite knowing what it is.

So let's fix that. This is a plain-English, genuinely useful explainer — no jargon, no spin — written for parents.

So what IS the EYLF?

The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is Australia's national curriculum for children from birth to five. It applies to every approved early childhood service in the country, and it is the document that guides what educators plan, observe, and document about your child.²

Its full name is Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. The current version is V2.0, published in 2022 and in effect across all services since 1 February 2023.¹

The three words the whole thing hangs on

Belonging. Being. Becoming.

Almost everything else in the EYLF is an elaboration of these three words. Understanding them is most of understanding the framework.

• Belonging is about connection — to family, culture, community, and the group at the centre. Children who feel they belong are more secure, more confident, more ready to learn. When the educator hugs your child on arrival, puts their name on their coat hook, or asks a Grandparent about their family's home language — that's belonging.
• Being is about right now. Childhood is not just preparation for school or adulthood — it has value in itself. When educators let children take the long route to the story mat because they're busy watching ants, or build an entire morning around a cardboard box — that's being.
• Becoming is about growth and change. Children are always learning, always moving toward something. When educators notice the first time your child shares a block, or uses a new word, or holds eye contact with a new friend — that's becoming.

The clever thing about this trio is that it pushes back against the two extreme positions people often take about early education — "it's just play, let them be kids" on one side, and "they should be reading by three" on the other. The EYLF's answer is: both. All three things at once, on purpose.

The five Learning Outcomes (with real examples)

Under those three big ideas, the EYLF sets out five Learning Outcomes. These are the things services are assessed against — so this is the bit you see in the app.¹

Outcome 1 — Children have a strong sense of identity

Is your child learning to say their name, make their own choices, try something hard without giving up, name their feelings? That's Outcome 1. In practice: your child insisting on putting their own shoes on (and taking the full seven minutes) is identity in action.

Outcome 2 — Children are connected with and contribute to their world

Does your child talk about their family, their friends, their culture, their place? Are they learning to share, take turns, care for living things? In practice: your toddler watering the basil on the herb table is Outcome 2 — connection to environment and responsibility.

Outcome 3 — Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

Emotional regulation, physical coordination, resilience. Hand-washing. Catching their own tantrum halfway through and taking a breath. In practice: the three-year-old who trips, looks at you, decides not to cry, and keeps running — that's Outcome 3.

Outcome 4 — Children are confident and involved learners

Curiosity, persistence, problem-solving. The willingness to try something new. In practice: when your child rebuilds the tower after it falls, tries a second puzzle piece after the first doesn't fit, asks why for the fourteenth time today — you are looking at Outcome 4. This is the one educators tag most often because it is visible in almost every play activity.

Outcome 5 — Children are effective communicators

Language, reading, numeracy, and yes — technology. Both verbal and non-verbal. In practice: the two-year-old pointing at the bird and making the sign for "more please" is using Outcome 5 every bit as much as a four-year-old reciting their favourite story.

What changed in V2.0 (2022)

The first EYLF was published in 2009. V2.0 is the first major update — developed by a national consortium led by Macquarie University, QUT, and Edith Cowan University.⁵ The Learning Outcomes themselves are unchanged — but a few things around them have shifted meaningfully:

• Stronger Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Built in throughout, not as an add-on.
• A new principle: "Collaborative leadership and teamwork". Recognises that quality early childhood is a team sport, not a solo act.
• A new principle: "Sustainability". Environmental responsibility is now an expected part of early childhood practice in Australia.
• Cultural competence → cultural responsiveness. A subtle but important shift from "understanding" to "actively adjusting practice".
• Equity, inclusion and high expectations renamed and strengthened as a principle — the message is that every child is held to high, but appropriate, expectations.⁴

What this looks like in your family app feed

When your centre sends you a "learning story" tagged to Outcome 4.2, what they're doing is showing you which aspect of your child's learning they saw today. The tags are not a report card — they are a map. Over a term, they build a picture of your child's strengths, interests, and the things they are working toward.

The tags are also how the service evidences its own compliance to the National Quality Standard — specifically Quality Area 1, Educational program and practice. So a well-tagged observation is doing two jobs at once: telling you something real about your child, and showing regulators that the service is following the framework.

Good questions to ask your educator

If you want to go beyond smiling and nodding at "Outcome 4.2", here are three genuinely useful questions:

1. "Which Learning Outcomes is my child particularly interested in right now?" This lets the educator share what they're seeing and gives you something concrete to do at home.
2. "Have you noticed a change in any of the outcomes over the last few months?" This turns a static tag into a trajectory, which is how the framework is actually meant to be used.
3. "How can we support that at home without turning it into homework?" The EYLF explicitly values family as children's first teachers — a good educator will welcome this question.

If you want to read the framework yourself — and we recommend it, it's only 68 pages and written in surprisingly readable language — it is available free from ACECQA.