Help understanding the Australian early years system?

[ashlloyd]

I am thinking about moving to Sydney Australia from london UK and am very unsure of the Australian early years system???

I have a level 3 Diploma in child care and education, earned in the UK, with over 4years qualifed experience. I am currently working in a child care center in London, and the early years system here is quite hard to explain, we have private day care centers, state nurserys, sure start and goverment funded nurserys and many more!

What i mean by this is as I work in the area I know that private centers are all about the profit and treat the staff very badlly, the state nurserys are good for 'perks' (such as only working term time), and sure start is known for good practice and treating staff well.

What I would really like to know is if I were to move to Australia and look for a job what type should I look for in what kind of setting? Do ypur different settings work so different to? Does salery vary much between settings? That kind of thing to be honest any kind of insight into your early years system would be greatly apperciated.

Thank you for taking your time to read this, I look forward to hearing from you.

[Lorina]

Hi Ashlloyd,

You must be excited planning your move to Sydney Australia! cool...welcome to Australia...I am sure you'll love it here.. Have you been here before? It was nice reading your post.. It's interesting to know the system in other countries..

Here in Australia centres are "private" or "corporate" here in. There is also before & after school care and preschool centres. These also fall under the private and corporate centre category,

Private Centres:
Private centres are normally smaller businesses with private owners. It is a very cosy and less formal environment. When I say less formal, I mean you might not even have to wear a centre uniform. So far, I personally haven’t experienced any problems working in a Private centre in terms of “staffs being treated badly”.

When it comes to the program and planning it is your complete responsibility. This means you need to develop program material, observation records, resources etc. Most of the time you will be using developmental checklists during observations and for the developmental planning. Sometimes, at a private centre you will be the only diploma qualified which at times can be difficult due to workload and responsibilities. However, there are a few private centres which take great care in making their staff comfortable and happy.

Corporate Centres:
Corporate centres can be small to a big chain of childcare centres. Some of the known and popular ones are ABCs, Head start Learning, Kidscorner, etc..

Programming and planning are also part of your responsibility but at most corporate centres the curriculum outline is already prepared for you, which makes it simpler when doing programming, planning and observations. Keep in mind that there is a lot of formality such as a whole lot of paperwork to be filled out because each corporate centre maintains the same services across all their centres.

Differences you can find as a Child care Professional:
You can certainly find differences working in a Private centre and a Corporate centre. In a corporate centre, I find that you can get more benefits like split shift allowances, travel allowances, etc...But in a private centre you might receive just the wages for your working hours. However, please note that it varies between centres. I am telling you this based on my past experience.

Thought I'd share some info...

,
L.A

[ashlloyd]

Thank you so much for your reply and so quick to!! You have been very helpful.

I came to Sydney in 2008-2009 and worked with a few agencies that sent me to a few settings, I quite liked the Lady Gowrie centers I visited, are they corporate or private?

I am looking to come back August 2011 and am very nervose about where to start, im not even sure what the average salery for a diploma is?

Thanl you again so much I think I may be paniking for no reason.

[Lorina]

Why don't you try first by signing up with a recruitment agency and try working in different centres in the first 2 weeks...This will give you the opportunity of working in different types of centres in a short amount of time or until you find a centre for permanent work and there are plenty of casual jobs available through an agency.

When working full time (38 hrs/week) your average pay can be around $22/hr. However this depends on many factors such as your qualification, the centre, location, allowances etc.

Good Luck!

,
L.A

[ashlloyd]

RE: Recruitment agency sounds like a good idea thanks!

Im looking to start about the end of August hopefully, a job lined up before i get there would be great but by the sounds of it i could pick one up quite quickly so if you know of any? lol