New South Wales’ 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 NSW.

Exclusive: Sydneysiders who shifted their families out of the city during Covid have helped regional centres surge ahead in childcare ratings.

An analysis by KindiCare, an app that compares the quality and cost of daycare centres, crowned Goodstart Early Learning Tuggerah on the central coast the best in Australia.

And of the 20 best-performing suburbs for childcare in NSW, regional destinations made up almost half of the list.

These suburbs included Ballina, on the far north coast, Wallsend, in Newcastle, Gwynneville, in Wollongong and Glenbrook in the lower Blue Mountains.

KindiCare founder Benjamin Balk said demand for childcare in regional areas had skyrocketed as families made lockdown-inspired “tree changes”.

“People from cities are taking the sea change and tree change opportunity and moving to regional areas that are seeing an unexpected surge in demand for early learning services as their communities experience more rapid growth in younger families moving to these areas,” Mr Balk said.

Goodstart Early Learning Tuggerah has been crowned best in Australia.

Chris McNeill, economist and director of planning company Ethos Urban, said residential sales and building approvals in regional NSW had exploded in the past 18 months, with some towns struggling to keep up with demand.

“At first, I thought the surge in regional growth may have been a sugar hit,” he said.

“But now I’m increasingly certain we’re seeing a structural realignment in which many regional areas will continue to grow at a higher trajectory than previously predicted.

“The enablers for regional living are internet access and speed, growing confidence in video conferencing, improved transport connections between regional locations and the capital cities.”

Sydney suburbs, including Harrington Park, Camperdown and Glenhaven, topped the list of best-performing childcare locations.

Cobar, West Wyalong, Bungendore, Allambie Heights and Nambucca Heads were rated the worst.

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.”

NSW BEST PERFORMING SUBURBS

1. Harrington Park

2. Camperdown

3. Glenhaven

4. Tuggerah

5. Wallsend

6. Stanhope Gardens

7. South Coogee

8. Gwynneville

9. Glendenning

10. Woongarrah

11. Sydney

12. Ballina

13. Schofields

14. Kurri Kurri

15. Concord West

16. Jerrabomberra

17. Pymble

18. Narraweena

19. Glenbrook

20. Cooranbong

NSW WORST PERFORMING SUBURBS

1. Tahmoor

2. Cobar

3. West Wyalong

4. Bungendore

5. Allambie Heights

6. Nambucca Heads

7. Moruya

8. Blayney

9. Abermain

10. Broken Hill

11. Lithgow

12. Nulkaba

13. Kooringal

14. Garden suburb

15. Maitland

16. Narrabri

17. Branxton

18. Tuncurry

19. Moree

20. Gerringong