What Parents Should Ask Before Joining Any Childcare Waitlist

The first question almost every parent asks us is: "Do you have a spot?"

It's the wrong question. Not because it's unreasonable. It's the most natural thing to ask when you're stressed and running out of time. But the answer doesn't tell you what you actually need to know.

A spot being available doesn't mean it's the right spot for your child. We can't tell you whether we can offer you a place until we know your child. Their age, where they are developmentally, the days you need, the times you need them, and how those needs sit alongside the children already in the room. Sometimes we have vacancies on paper and can't take a family because the drop-off times don't work with the room dynamics. Sometimes we have what looks like a full room and we make space because the fit is right.

So if "do you have a spot" isn't the question, what is?

Here are the questions worth asking, of us, and of every other centre on your shortlist. The answers will tell you far more than availability ever will.

This is the most important question and almost no one asks it.

The childcare sector has a turnover problem. Educators leave. Rooms cycle through unfamiliar faces. Children form attachments and then watch them walk out the door. A centre that can't keep its educators can't give your child the one thing that matters most at this age: consistency of care.

For context: we have a team of nineteen. We hired two people in all of last year. We've lost one educator this year. Same faces, every day.

Ask any centre this question. If they fumble the answer, or pivot to "we have a great culture," press them on numbers.

Under Australian regulations, a trainee Certificate III counts toward Certificate III qualification requirements. A trainee Diploma counts toward Diploma requirements. This means a service can fill its rooms with trainees and remain fully compliant on paper.

Specifically: Regulation 126(1) of the Education and Care Services National Regulations (NSW) allows educators to be counted toward qualification requirements if they hold, or are actively working towards, the relevant approved qualification. "Actively working towards" is defined in Regulation 10 and requires evidence of enrolment, commencement, satisfactory progress and continued enrolment. Diploma-level counting has additional prerequisites.

That is legal. It is also, in my view, dangerous when relied on too heavily. Trainees have their place. Every experienced educator was once a trainee and a service that doesn't make room to train the next generation isn't doing its part for the sector. But trainees need to be trained. That requires an environment with enough qualified, experienced educators around them to model the work, answer the questions and catch the things a trainee won't yet see. A room staffed to the regulatory minimum with people still studying isn't that environment. It's a compliance arrangement dressed up as a team.

Ask the question. Ask for numbers. A centre with a healthy team will tell you without hesitation.

Every centre meets the regulated ratios. They have to. The real question is how.

Do they run their rooms exactly to ratio all day? Do they only add educators when a room is struggling? Or do they staff above ratio during peak periods so no room is ever stretched thin?

We typically have four to five educators above the required ratios during peak times. That's a deliberate choice. It means a child who needs extra support gets it without the room destabilising for everyone else.  It means that if an educator need to go home due to illness, they can and the service can recalibrate and run the day.  It means that an educator can go on leave and the service doesn't need to call in an agency casual to fill the gap.

Listen to how a centre answers this, not just whether they say yes.

Some services handle allergies by stripping the allergic child's plate back to the basics. We've heard of a child given plain pasta for lunch, every day, because of their allergies. The child eats. The centre is compliant. But the child eats alone, in a way, even when surrounded by other children.

When we've had children with significant dietary needs, we've reconfigured the menu around them. Not their meal. The menu. So that what's on the table is something every child can eat and the child with allergies isn't sitting in front of a different lunch to everyone else. It takes more planning. It changes how we shop and cook. It's worth it, because mealtimes are social and a child who eats differently every day learns something about themselves that we don't want them learning at three.

This is the question most parents are afraid to ask. Ask it anyway.

Every centre has incidents. Children fall over. They bump heads. They scratch each other. What matters is what the centre does when it happens.

We make a courtesy call for any injury to the head. We usually call for other incidents too, pending educator availability. Families will be informed of the incident during collection, at the very least.  Every incident is documented. Parents see the documentation.

Ask a centre what their incident process looks like. Ask who calls you and when. Ask to see what an incident report looks like. If the answer is vague, that's worth keeping in mind.

Your child will move rooms. From nursery to toddlers. From toddlers to preschool. These transitions matter. A rushed transition can unsettle a child for weeks.

Our process: trial days first, then an internal discussion among educators, then a conversation with the family, then a scheduled transition date. The child's readiness leads, not the calendar.

Ask a centre how they decide a child is ready. If they lead with, "when they turn two" or "when we need the cot," then they may not be considering child's best interests when it's time.

A centre that runs on systems alone will treat your child as a file. A centre that runs on relationships will treat your child as a person.

Our Educational Leader spends time in every room, observing and interacting. Educators are encouraged to share what they notice. When something is worth noting, we document it. Management and ownership see it too, so that knowledge of each child stays consistent across the team.

Ask a centre how observations about a child move between educators. The answer reveals whether the place is built around children or built around compliance.  Both matter.

New child protection regulations came into effect on 24 April 2026 in NSW. Among other requirements, every centre is now required to have a comprehensive child safety and child protection risk assessment and action plan.

Ask to see evidence that it exists. Not the policy document. Ask what the centre has actually changed in response. A centre that treats child safety as a system will be able to answer. A centre that treats it as paperwork will hand you a folder.

If you've been reading the news, you already know why these questions matter more now than they did two years ago. The childcare sector has been forced to confront serious failures and parents are right to be cautious. The centres that respond well to scrutiny are the ones worth joining. A centre that welcomes hard questions has nothing to hide. A centre that gets defensive, or recites policy, or steers you back to availability and price, is telling you something else.

Ask the hard questions.