Childcare centres in NSW: How government assessors rated each
Government ratings — based on criteria such as education and staffing — for every childcare centre in NSW can be revealed following a comprehensive analysis of data. SEE HOW YOUR CENTRE RATES IN OUR INTERACTIVE SPECIAL.
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Government ratings for every childcare centre in NSW can be revealed following an comprehensive analysis of data.
It has found that more than one fifth of the childcare centres and before and after school hours services that have undergone inspections do not meet national standards.
According to the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, centres are assessed on seven criteria – education; health and safety; physical environment; staffing; relationships with children; partnerships with families and communities and governance and leadership.
In NSW 15 childcare centres have achieved the highest National Quality Standard (NQS) rating of excellent.
A further 1353 are exceeding the standards required and 2724 are meeting requirements.
However, 1111 are not up to scratch, with the majority ‘working towards NQS’ while five need to make significant improvements.
More than 400 other childcare centres have not yet been rated due to recently being set up.
Inspire Carlingford is one after school childcare centre that has achieved the top rating.
Director of Inspire Sophie May runs 12 centres, two have currently suspended operations due to a lack of numbers following COVID.
She said the Carlingford centre, based at Muirfield High School in North Rocks, received its excellent rating for works innovation with lots of extra curricular activities as well as a martial arts program and handy homework club.
“We have a taekwondo program that runs everyday that means kids can get their black belt by the time they leave primary school,” Ms May said.
“We also have a homework club.
“It means when parents pick up their children at 6pm it’s family time.”
The national register shows that between January through to the end of September this year, 795 centres received inspection ratings.
Over the same period in 2019, 1019 centres received ratings.
The national register also shows five centres in NSW have not been inspected since 2014.
However, a NSW Education spokesman said while COVID-19 has had an impact on the number of service visits during lockdown the number of visits from January 1 to September 30 has actually increased from 4619 in 2019 to 5250 in 2020.
However, the spokesman was not able to breakdown the figures to give the number of inspections.
“The health, safety and wellbeing of children is the number one priority for the department and the Regulatory Authority has made a range of changes to operations to allow them to continue to conduct service visits in a COVID-safe way,” the spokesman said.