St Anthony's Early Childhood Centre celebrates as educational success recognised

A report released last month acknowledged the growing body of evidence that shows early childhood education improves children's cognitive and socio-emotional development.

Analysis of PISA data from 2015 showed 15-year-olds who received an early childhood education outperformed those who had not by an average of about one year's worth of learning.

Time spent in an early childhood setting followed by the student-to-teacher ratio and public expenditure were listed as the biggest influences on success.

It's particularly good news for the ACT where about 95 per cent of children attend preschool before enrolling in kindergarten.

The positive findings, detailed in the OECD report Starting Strong 2017, came as no surprise to St Anthony's Parish Primary principal Greg Walker and Early Learning Centre director Sharon O'Brien.

The Wanniassa school expanded to cater for four-year-olds in response to community demand and opened near its capacity of 66 children in February this year.

St Anthony's Early Learning Centre credits its use of the student-centred Reggio Emilio approach underpinned by Catholic values in attracting so many families in its first year of opening.

"We really start from that place of developing strong relationships of trust and respect with children and really encouraging the children to see that in their environment with each other [and] with the environment that they're working and living in," Ms O'Brien said.

Ms O'Brien, an early childhood educator of more than 30 years, also acknowledged the growing recognition of the importance of early childhood education.

"It's great news for us because it reinforces what we've believed and operated on for many years and now the evidence is showing us these years are very important now until people's adulthood," she said.

"Even health indicators like obesity, heart disease, those sort of things can all be tracked back to a child's experience in their early years and what sort of experience has been provided for a child there."

The ACT government has committed to developing an early childhood strategy with clearer accountability measures with Education Minister Yvette Berry last month detailing her wish to work with the sector on the policy.

"I will be seeing whether we can work better with the sector with the levers that we have responsibility for here in the ACT to provide better opportunities for families to access quality early childhood education," she told a Legislative Assembly estimates hearing.