EYLF 2.0 Sustainability Practice Assessment

Discover exactly where your service stands and map your clear path to embedded sustainability

You Know Your Service Can Do More

Your team runs Earth Day activities and tends the garden. Children participate in recycling programs and care for worm farms.

But you sense there's something deeper waiting—a level of practice that transforms not just what your service does, but how children see themselves as change-makers in their world.

The challenge? Without a clear picture of where your service currently stands, it's impossible to know which specific actions will create the breakthrough your team needs.

Get Your Service's Precise Position

This diagnostic assessment reveals exactly where your service stands across the three critical dimensions of embedded sustainability practice. More importantly, it shows you the specific next steps to lead your team forward with confidence.

In just 12 questions, you'll discover:

Your service's current sustainability practice profile across all dimensions
The specific capabilities your team has already developed (you're doing more right than you think)
Clear next actions to advance your service without overwhelming your educators
Evidence-based benchmarks used by leading sustainability service

Each question focuses on what you observe happening across your service right now. No theoretical scenarios or wishful thinking—just honest assessment of your current reality.

Complete Your Service Assessment

Takes 5-7 minutes. Choose the response that most closely matches what you typically see from your educators and team.

First Name

Last Name

Email *

Phone *

Organization

Insight #1: It's Not About Environmental vs. Everything Else

Your service's transformation: From teaching three separate topics to recognising sustainability thinking that's already happening

Question 1.1: When children discuss fairness or sharing during play, your educators typically:

A) Note it as social development, but don't connect it to sustainability learning

B) Sometimes recognise this as sustainability thinking when reminded during team meetings

C) Consistently identify this as economic sustainability thinking about resource distribution

D) Use these moments to help children explore connections between fairness, resources, and community care, supporting systems thinking about how decisions affect everyone

Question 1.2: Your service's sustainability focus is:

A) Primarily environmental (recycling, nature activities, garden care)

B) Mostly environmental with occasional social elements (community helpers, sharing)

C) Deliberately includes all three dimensions, but educators plan them as separate activities

D) Naturally weaves environmental, social, and economic dimensions together as children's interests emerge

Question 1.3: When your team plans sustainability experiences, they:

A) Focus on environmental activities because they're most concrete

B) Try to include social and economic aspects, but find them harder to implement

C) Plan activities that address all three dimensions but treat them as separate learning areas

D) Use the three dimensions as lenses to understand and extend children's existing investigations while building systems thinking about interconnections

Question 1.4: If a child asks, "Why do they have more blocks than us?", your educators would:

A) Redirect to more comfortable topics or give simple explanations about fairness

B) Answer the question, but do not recognise it as sustainability thinking

C) Recognise this as economic sustainability thinking about resource distribution and provide age-appropriate explanations

D) Use this as an opportunity to explore economic sustainability concepts through the child's genuine curiosity about how resources are shared, fostering systems thinking about cause and effect

Insight #2: Children Are Already Sustainability Thinkers

Your service's transformation: From creating sustainability learning to extending sustainability thinking that's already there.

Question 2.1: Your educators recognise sustainability thinking when children:

A) Participate in planned sustainability activities only

B) Show obvious environmental concern (worrying about hurt animals, wanting to help plants)

C) Ask questions or show behaviours that demonstrate care, fairness, or connection thinking

D) Engage in any form of inquiry about relationships, consequences, or responsibility

Question 2.2: When children sort materials during play, your educators:

A) See this as mathematical or organisational learning

B) Sometimes connect this to environmental sustainability (sorting recyclables)

C) Often recognise this as sustainability thinking about categorisation and resource management, beginning to explore systems connections

D) Consistently use these moments to explore how sorting and caring for things connect to community and environmental care, developing systems thinking about relationships and patterns

Question 2.3: Your service's approach to sustainability learning is:

A) Educator-planned activities delivered to children

B) Mix of planned activities and educator responses to obvious sustainability moments

C) Primarily responsive to children's interests, but educators need prompting to see sustainability connections

D) Genuinely co-created with children based on their emerging sustainability thinking

Question 2.4: Documentation practices in your service:

A) Rarely capture sustainability thinking unless it occurs during designated sustainability activities

B) Sometimes note sustainability thinking when it's particularly obvious to educators

C) Regularly identify and document children's sustainability thinking across various contexts

D) Use documentation to make children's sustainability thinking visible and plan responsive extensions that develop systems thinking capabilities

Insight #3: Embedded Means Relevant to Your People and Place

Your service's transformation: From following sustainability recipes to investigating sustainability questions that matter to your people and place.

Question 3.1: Your service's sustainability practices:

A) Follow generic programs or activities that could be implemented anywhere

B) Include some local elements but mostly use standard sustainability activities

C) Deliberately incorporate local environment and community but still follow external frameworks, beginning to explore systems connections

D) Emerge from genuine investigation of sustainability questions specific to your families, community, and environment, with children developing systems thinking about their place in the world

Question 3.2: In your service, families' cultural backgrounds and values:

A) Are respected but not specifically connected to sustainability learning

B) Sometimes inform sustainability activities when educators remember to include them

C) Are deliberately incorporated into sustainability planning and experiences

D) Naturally shape sustainability investigations as families become co-researchers in the learning process

Question 3.3: Your local environment and community:

A) Provide the setting for generic sustainability activities

B) Sometimes influence activity choices (beach cleanup if coastal, bushland or garden if suburban or rural)

C) Consistently inform sustainability planning and shape specific experiences

D) Generate authentic sustainability questions that become ongoing investigations unique to your place, developing children's systems thinking about local connections and impacts

Question 3.4: When sustainability challenges arise in your community, your service:

A) Continues with planned activities regardless of current local issues

B) Sometimes acknowledges local issues but doesn't change practice significantly

C) Adjusts sustainability learning to address relevant local challenges

D) Partners with children and families to investigate local sustainability questions as they emerge

Notes / Comments:

Score

Ready to see exactly where your service stands?

Complete the assessment above and receive your detailed practice profile with specific next steps for leading sustainable transformation.