Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care

The Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care at Thames International College prepares students for leadership roles in early childhood education and care. Students learn to design and deliver curriculum, foster children's learning, manage staff, and ensure services meet compliance standards. The course includes a minimum of 280 hours of work placement in an approved childcare service, giving hands-on, real-world experience.

The qualification is made up of 18 units — 12 core and 6 electives — covering team effectiveness, maintaining a safe and healthy environment for children, fostering holistic early childhood learning, development and wellbeing, nurturing creativity, facilitating compliance in a children's education and care service, fostering positive and respectful interactions and behaviour, inclusion strategies for all children, analysing information to inform children's learning, planning and implementing curriculum, embedding environmental responsibility in service operations, working in partnership with children's families, reflecting on and improving professional practice, supporting the learning and development of teams, research and evidence-based practice, innovative work environments, responding to grievances and complaints, emotional intelligence, and promoting equity in access to the service.

The course runs for 78 weeks in total (60 study weeks plus 18 weeks of holidays) at the College's North Sydney campus. Delivery combines classroom lessons with supervised online learning — 14 hours of face-to-face classes and 6 hours of supervised online study each week — with about 5 hours of self-study per week on top. Classes combine theory and practical activities in a setting similar to a real childcare workplace.

The course is designed for students who already hold a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and want to progress into leadership and management roles in the sector.