Child Care News
Top tips to being a career mum
Herald Sun - Jennifer Ennion - January 23, 2012You did it. You made the choice to follow the path with the signpost reading: babies. Now, as your maternity leave nears its end or the call of adult conversation beckons, you are gearing up to make life even busier. You're returning to work. Scared? No need to be...
Threat of toxic playgrounds
Sydney Morning Herald - Natalie O'Brien - January 22, 2012The health of thousands of children may be at risk from long-term exposure to toxic chemicals from artificial turf that has become a popular replacement for grass on sporting ovals and school playgrounds around the country. Australian scientists have raised the alarm...
Childcare change at a price
The Mercury - Hannah Martin - January 22, 2012Family day care operators say they will be forced to work longer hours or raise their prices under new regulations that reduce the number of children they can care for. More than 5500 Tasmanian children are now attending family day care. New regulations...
Secret report 'prompted Baillieu childcare cut'
The Age - Clay Lucas - January 21, 2012The Baillieu government has used a report it kept secret for almost a year to justify its decision to remove funding for an occasional childcare program. The Take a Break program provided occasional childcare for parents of preschool children around the state...
Bad parents leaving kids unsupervised at play centres
Herald Sun - Alex White - January 18, 2012Police have been called in to deal with parents dumping children unsupervised at indoor play centres while they go shopping, or to avoid soaring day care costs. A Herald Sun investigation found children were being left unsupervised at play areas across Victoria every week...
Staff hard to come by as childcare centres struggle with reforms
The Sydney Morning Herald - Jessica Wright - January 16, 2012A regional NSW childcare centre risks losing its accreditation after a fruitless two-year search to fill a single vacancy for a university qualified teacher and carer. The owner of the Willows Preschool and Early Learning Centre in Orange, Cathy Carroll, runs an operation which...
Childcare cuts will send home those who should be in the workforce
The Sydney Morning Herald - Kathryn Kenny - January 16, 2012When most childcare centres cost $100 a day or more, the tax rebate (capped at $7500 per child) cuts out after day three. When you have two children to care for, and when working more than three days takes you into a higher tax bracket, you are almost at the point of paying to go to work...
Childcare safety risk
The Mercury - Hannah Martin - January 15, 2012Tasmanian childcare operators have been busted with unregistered carers and for failing to have enough staff supervising children on excursions, a Sunday Tasmanian investigation reveals. Eleven cases of serious safety breaches were investigated by the Department...
Wealthy winners in childcare grants
Sydney Morning Herald - Misha Schubert - January 15, 2012‎HIGH-INCOME families are receiving more than $259 million a year in childcare subsidies, prompting calls for a rethink on the level of government support. But women's workforce advocates warn against making cuts, saying the subsidy saves money...
Gillard government reforms to childcare are worth paying more money for
The Sunday Telegraph - Samantha Maiden - January 15, 2012‎Worth paying for: New rules increasing the number of childcare workers for each toddler are good for the carers and babies. ONE toddler is eating her lunch. One is mashing banana into the carpet. One baby is sleeping, another is howling...
Parents pay anything from $62 to $130 a day
Herald Sun - Elissa Doherty - January 11, 2012The gulf between the cheapest and most expensive childcare centres has blown out to nearly $70 a day after federal reforms. Melbourne's cheapest centres, which have managed to avoid large fee rises after mandatory changes to staffing levels, are offering care...
Increased rebates helping keep childcare costs down, report reveals
Sydney Morning Herald - Adele Horin - January 9, 2012Families spent a significantly lower proportion of their income on childcare last year than they did in 2004, an official report shows. Despite perceptions of run-away childcare fees, increased government subsidies slashed the out-of-pocket costs...
Online reviews worry some operators
The Age - Cosima Marriner - January 8, 2012PARENTS will soon be able to rate their childcare centre online and share their reviews with others. The online childcare directory CareforKids is preparing to launch the TripAdvisor-style ratings system for users of childcare services, the first system of its kind...
Preschools flunk the test
Sydney Morning Herald - Cosima Marriner - January 8, 2012THE standard of teaching in Australian preschools is "very poor", a government-funded national study into the quality of early education has found. The finding from the E4Kids study suggests children may be attending little more than glorified playgroup...
Where children thrive on an outside chance
Sydney Morning Herald - Cosima Marriner - January 8, 2012It may be the depths of winter in Scandinavia, but children attending the increasingly popular outdoor childcare centres spend all day in the forest. They pitch tents, go hiking and make hot chocolate. While this freewheeling approach is a far cry from the regimented system in Australia...
