Pros
Being one of the centres of a privately owned company, the centre provides benefits such as annual leave, paid sick leave and paid education. The company pays most of your things for you, and the company is also clear about their values and rules. The location is also a 10 minute walk to Hornsby station and Hornsby Westfield, so even though the destination isn't particularly convenient, it isn't very obscure either. The centre also has a spacious upstairs playground, where most of the older children play at. It used to also have a ball pit but it's now a "calm down" area for children. Most of the rooms have natural sunlight peeking through them, making up for a leisurely environment.
Cons
Firstly, most of our staff there have pointed out that management does weird things with their employees, and often rosters them in strange spots, such as one that I remembered hearing from another (former) employee, "I've told the manager that I don't like caring for preschoolers, but I got assigned to look after preschoolers!" Briefly speaking, management finds ways to thwart desperate situations by scratching at the little talent that is left behind, throwing people around trying to find "their spot" in lieu of finding suitable, capable candidates to lead rooms, support room leaders etc. I have also found that the program for the children is universal -- without a lot of thought about it on how it fits into the developmental milestones of different age groups. This in turn puts a lot of pressure on educators, as well as the pressures of completing paperwork online, observations, supervision, bad internet connection etc. Most of the educators have let incidents happen to children due to the immense amounts of paperwork that needed to be done, accounting for the lack of supervision and occasional lack of care towards the children at times, which leads to my third point. There isn't enough staff support. Sure, the staff do ask about off days and changes to their timetable as well as using our company benefits, but there is little to no on-site staff support in difficult situations, and staff I've seen are thrown into the deep end to face the jaws of a bunch of children displaying challenging behaviours or special needs. The only thing closest to any kind of staff support are a bunch of notes in the babies' rooms telling you how to settle them to sleep. The company originally intended well when they dug up the floors (literally) of the childcare to improve it and allow it to be NQF qualified by A&R, but during the process of improving the centre up to this day, the new management not only has driven away an assortment of old time employees at the centre, but has also defeated the morale of some of us. Management not only has been insensitive to staff, but to parents as well. The crushing feeling of dread grips you as soon as you walk into the centre as an employee. That's how bad it is.
