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This paper has examined how Inclusive practices among early Childhood Educational Education (ECE) setting in metropolitan Sydney is enforced against existing global and national standards and regulations. How does the physical learning environment support children with additional needs?;  How does inclusion reflect on the educational program in the areas of Curriculum content and pedagogical practice; and How equipped are the educators to support children with additional needs based on the quality of their academic preparation and professional trainings? are the questions that helped chart the direction of this research. We used survey instruments to cull baseline data from our respondents schools and used statistical and document analysis to provide a firm argument to prove that centres has not yet fully embedded inclusion in their educational practice. In the end, the research has revealed that all the centres are not and are ill-prepared to be inclusive of children with additional needs. Across all the centres surveyed, there is a considerable lack of infrastructure to allow people with mobility limitations to explore and access the learning space fully. Also, the study revealed that inclusive education is not integrated in their curricular program, if they do, they create a dedicated program for, if and when a child with additional comes along and enrol. At this instance, these centres become by definition reactive as opposed to being proactive to inclusion.  Educators predominantly in this study are unprepared to handle children with additional needs for lack of training both in their academic preparation and lack of professional development training in this aspect. This study also found out that the problem is part of bigger problem and that the absence of authentic inclusive education practice in the early education centres in Sydney is only symptomatic of something more.

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Gerardo Salonga (Australia) 8640
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