South Australia’s best and worst suburbs for childcare revealed

Australia’s 16,552 child care services have been rated on quality and value. See list of best and worst in SA.

Exclusive: An Adelaide childcare facility has muscled out larger and pricier centres to be named one of Australia’s best.

The Learning Sanctuary Norwood finished seventh in an inaugural national analysis of early learning centres by KindiCare, an app that compares the quality and cost of daycare centres.

KindiCare also assessed the state’s best and worst performing areas for childcare, with Munno Para West, Paradise and Modbury North claiming top honours.

KindiCare founder Benjamin Balk said the demand in these areas was largely due to the state’s location size and population.

“South Australia, similar to the Northern Territory and Tasmania has a more diverse population density and different population demographic and jobs demographic compared to NSW and Victoria,” he said.

“So like we see in other capital cities, quality tends to be higher on average in more densely populated urban areas versus regional areas.”

The Learning Sanctuary Norwood finished seventh in an inaugural national analysis of early learning centres. Picture: Supplied

The Learning Sanctuary Norwood charges around $124 per day for children to attend, which is significantly lower than the $200 a day some east cost metropolitan centres command.

“Covid-19 has certainly been a challenging time for many children, families, team members and the wider early childhood education and care sector. I’m proud of how my team has continued to support our children, families, community and each other over the past almost two years,” The Learning Sanctuary Norwood’s manager Christine Moody said.

Ceduna, Strathalbyn, Berri and Port Adelaide were rated the worst in SA.

Using Federal Government quality ratings combined with user rankings, KindiCare assessed Australia’s 16,552 child care services between May and November this year. KindiCare’s rating system took into account the quality of care and value for money offered by the early learning services.

“You’ve got just as much chance of a poor performing centre being in the heart of the city as it being in a regional area,” Mr Balk said of the results, crunched for the first time.

Tasmania was the worst-performing state overall, while Queensland’s Thursday Island was the worst performing location nationally.

“What the top and bottom centres highlight overall is that it is important for every family to look in their local area to see how quality compares against the national benchmarks,” Mr Balk said.

“And also how centres in an area compare against each other when considering suitability and value for money.

“Whilst not black and white, regional areas do tend to perform worse than metro areas, particularly in Queensland, Victoria and NSW where participation in early learning is the highest.”

Across the country, family day care services continued to perform lower than all other early childhood education and care types.

Mr Balk said it came largely down to the service being under resourced compared to other parts of the sector.

“If you look at the average childcare centre, you can see centres have anywhere from 28 to 180 children in a centre and so they tend to be more structured,” he said.

“When it comes to family daycare, they tend to operate under a different structure where individual educators might have four children in their home that they’re looking after.

“So there’s not the same sort of structure and rigour as what you see in centre based care, which is why it tends to underperform.”

SA BEST PERFORMING SUBURBS FOR CHILDCARE

1. Munno Para West

2. Paradise

3. Modbury North

4. Magill

5. Ingle Farm

6. St Peters

7. Enfield

8. Victor Harbor

9. Craigmore

10. Goodwood

11. Munno Para

12. Para Hills

13. Kidman Park

14. Para Vista

15. Adelaide

16. Prospect

17. Salisbury East

18. Norwood

19. Lockleys

20. Walkerville

SA WORST PERFORMING SUBURBS FOR CHILDCARE

1. Ceduna

2. Strathalbyn

3. Berri

4. Port Adelaide

5. Elizabeth

6. Seaford

7. Hove

8. Brooklyn Park

9. Renmark

10. Lyndoch

11. Virginia

12. Whyalla Norrie

13. Klemzig

14. Golden Grove

15. Clare

16. Angle Vale

17. Blair Athol

18. Athelstone

19. Naracoorte

20. Plympton