Victoria’s best and worst childcare centres revealed | full list

The worst-performing childcare centres in Victoria have been revealed. SEE THE LIST.

Hundreds of childcare centres across Victoria are falling behind national standards, according to new data released by the United Workers Union.

The report has rated 497 centres across the state as working towards national standards.

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority rated the centres as excellent, exceeding, meeting or working towards the national quality standards. Centres can also be assessed as requiring significant improvements, the ACECQA’s lowest rating.

Centres are assessed in seven areas; educational program and practice, children‘s health and safety, physical environment, staffing arrangements, collaborative partnerships with families and communities and governance and leadership.

Across Victoria, 18 centres have been hit with a working towards national standards rating in 2021 alone.

A centre with a ‘working towards NQS’ rating is not unsafe, but has one or more areas identified for improvement.

But in good news, not one Victorian centre is currently rated as requiring significant improvements.

Leading from the front

Victoria leads the country in terms of commitment to quality in childcare, according to the boss of Australia’s peak early childhood advocacy organisation.

Speaking to the Leader, Early Childhood chief executive Sam Page said there was more being done in Victoria than any other state to support the sector.

But Ms Page said it was still important to fund regulatory authorities so they could conduct frequent quality assessments, especially after the difficulties imposed by Covid.

CEO of Early Childhood Australia Sam Page (Picture: supplied)

It comes after the United Workers Union released a report into the state of the for-profit Early Childhood sector.

UWU Sarah Gardner spokeswoman said early childhood education and care in Australia was increasingly dominated by for-profit providers, which was concerning when the report detailed for-profits were the worst performing.

The report also detailed the failures of the for-profit childcare system, with almost 90 per cent of Victorian centres subjected to enforcement actions since 2016.

Those cases in which the Department of Education and Training cancelled providers’ approval to operate a centre, 98 per cent involved for-profit centres.

But Ms Page said not all for-profit childcare providers were bad with some private providers exceeding the quality ratings.

According to the report not one for-profit centre in Victoria holds an ‘excellent’ rating from the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority.

But five of Victoria’s more than 4000 childcares hold an ‘excellent’ rating, with 497 rated as working towards the quality standards.

Yuille Park Children’s Centre in Ballarat was awarded an excellent rating in June and supervisor Amandah Taylor said the centre’s philosophy was based around the children.

“A lot of our philosophy is about really researching deeply into what children need, and what‘s best for their development and we get the idea that play is what they should be doing all the time, not just sometimes at recess, play is at the centre of our philosophy.” she said.

The centre is located in Ballarat’s most disadvantaged suburb and Ms Taylor said the centre took a “hierarchy of needs” approach to caring for their children, ensuring first and foremost they were fed and warm and felt comfortable and safe.

Yuille Park Children’s Centre in Ballarat was awarded an excellent rating in June and is one of just five centres in Victoria to hold the rating. (Picture: Nicole Garmston - Chase 4 , Alyssa 4 and Dominic 4 count shoes at Yuille Park Children‘s centre, Wendouree.)

“They’re doing amazing things through their play — they’re choosing to learn to write. We’ve got all this stuff set up for them and all they want to do is write and we don‘t say to them, right, we’re going to sit down and write now. They come to us and say ‘Oh, can you show me how to write my name? Can you show me how to do this? Can you help me with this?’”

Ms Taylor said the centre had encountered some scepticism towards its approach, but the ‘excellent’ rating showed how well the play-based approach worked.

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