Wattle Early Learning Australia: education website design for curious families

Wattle Early Learning is a Nordic-inspired preschool network with fourteen campuses across six Australian states, from Hobart to Perth. The Australian edition keeps the same tested templates as every Wattle site, but it is Australian through and through: Pty Ltd with an ABN, fees in AUD including GST, day care and kindergarten language, state-based regulation, and an Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians in the footer.

Project facts

• Client: Wattle Early Learning Pty Ltd (fictional)
• Sector: Early childhood education and care
• Markets: Fourteen campuses across six states and territories, headquartered in Sydney
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Early learning website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 15 page templates shared with every Wattle Early Learning edition
• Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

Australian early learning language, not American with sunshine

Australia shares English with the US edition, but its early years vocabulary and rules are its own. Families look for day care or kindergarten, not daycare or preschool; fees are quoted per month in AUD including GST; and each campus answers to its state regulator. The copy also flips the calendar: summer is December to February, and the enrolment year starts in January.

Designing for Australia

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Story - US edition: Founded in Portland, Oregon · Australia: Founded in Hobart, Tasmania
• Campuses - US edition: Six US campus pages · Australia: Fourteen Australian campuses across six states
• Fees - US edition: Monthly tuition in USD · Australia: $1,650–$2,150 per month AUD incl. GST
• Words - US edition: Preschool, daycare, enrollment · Australia: Kindergarten, day care, enrol
• Places - US edition: Park Slope, Denver Highlands, Pearl District · Australia: Fitzroy, Newtown, Battery Point
• Legal - US edition: US state licensing · Australia: Privacy Act 1988 and APPs, OAIC, Spam Act 2003
• Entity - US edition: LLC · Australia: Pty Ltd, ABN, Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians
• Look - US edition: Oat, clay, ochre, moss, spruce; Fraunces + Alegreya Sans · Australia: High-key white, sage and deep teal; Gambetta + General Sans, rounder corners
• Season - US edition: Northern-hemisphere school year · Australia: Southern-hemisphere year, summer Dec–Feb, EOFY June

Brand adaptation

The same Wattle Early Learning, with a local accent

The Australian edition lightens the palette: a high-key off-white page, sage and deep teal panels, and a warm brown accent for eyebrows, numbers and hovers. Gambetta and General Sans (both free from Fontshare) replace Fraunces and Alegreya Sans, and larger corner radii soften every card. The hand-drawn underline stays, now in warm brown rather than ochre.

Homepage and key journeys

The homepage opens on a sunlit Australian campus and the line A gentler, braver kind of early learning, with a Book a tour button in the header. The long scroll runs through the philosophy in six pillars, programs by age with monthly fees in AUD including GST, parent testimonials from Fitzroy and Newtown, a photo mosaic, nearby campuses and the latest journal articles. The most distinctive flow is the four-step online application (Child, Parents, Program, Confirm), which turns a daycare admission into an eight-minute task.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy policy under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, with the OAIC complaint route and Spam Act 2003 consent for marketing.
• Fees shown in AUD including GST; state-based licensing and ratios noted on each campus page.
• Footer: Wattle Early Learning Pty Ltd, demo ABN, Surry Hills NSW address and an Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one file per market, and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a strings file, a theme, regional photography and local legal content made it a different brand experience. For an early-learning provider with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 15 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 22 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board