early childhood teacher

shift leader

center director

senior educator

educator

Little Zaks Academy

The centre itself is amazing, with a large playground, and lots of activities in the rooms that encourage creative activities for the children. The children themselves are great, many are very loving, playful, vocal, and easily interested in knew topics or easy to get engaged in new tasks. Forming attachments quickly with the children can happen.

A large centre, with a large number of children and not enough staff. As a trainee, we need to be mentored and trained from the time we start our work there, rather than floating around rooms filling in for staff who are absent, working in rooms that are understaffed, with staff who are amazing and qualified, but who are stressed and who don't have the time to mentor trainees.

High trainee turnover. If you're lucky enough to get qualifications there, there are great career advancement opportunities. However, many of the things I was promised would happen as a trainee never occurred. I would recommend this centre for experienced and qualified childcare workers. I would not recommend this centre for completing a traineeship. Trainees are essentially on a job trial for 2 weeks, and only if they impress will the traineeship actually begin.

The expectation for a trainee is incredibly high. Without any mentoring and very little training you are expected to be able to do the job well from day one. There is favouritism, and trainees are easily discarded if believed to be not the right fit, as it's a 6 month probation period. But you can be dismissed much earlier. Quick decisions are made about this and there is not much chance to prove your value, as you can be dismissed without any constructive feedback. And room leaders are not able to observe you with your group of kids in the large playground, as they are a distance away focusing on their own group of kids.

In an understaffed centre there is a lack of mentorship, proper training, and fair appraisal of your performance.

I was excited to start my employment at Little Zak's. The Interview was a great experience, which made me feel positive about taking the position. 
Then I started working there!! 
I was overwhelmed from day 1! I have the skills to do the job, but it has been made hard due to lack of communication. Not given all, or the correct, information can be extremely dangerous when there are children with allergies in the centre. 
It is daily battle having to clean up other people's mess before I can start my own work. There is never enough staff, which means they don't clean up after themselves, leaving me more work. 
I was working an extra 3-4 hours (unpaid) a week for the first few months of employment until I organised my section to a more manageable time frame. I submitted a new menu, but was basically told it wasn't good enough. A month later, I was told Upper management had a new menu ready, without asking for my opinion. Even the CEO, Rich, was a little bewildered that I wasn't consulted.
I voiced my concerned regarding the new time consuming menu, and how it may be shuffled around to fit in my working hours, only to be ignored- TWICE! I'm not even allowed to organise the recipe book to suit my needs. Clearly my time is not important. 

I am still employed at LZ, but my stress levels and blood pressure are way too high due to working here, leaving me no other option than to look for employment elsewhere. My experience has made me regret leaving my previous Childcare Chef position.
I will miss the friends I have made here though. 

A typical day at work is,
moving the children from one room to another 
- supervising and playing with them until all staff members have started
- nappy change
- feeding them morning tea
- starting the day off, with different activities every day depending if parents have written a child's interest or what they had did on the weekend, we would extend it for them
- doing arts and craft with them
- playing with them and doing more activities
- going outside for play time
- going inside and washing the children before lunch time
- sitting and feeding the children their lunch
- cleaning them after lunch and getting them ready for rest time
- nappy change
- during rest time employees take turn going on their breaks
- once their break is over we do some paper work while the children are still resting 
- once all the children are awake, we change their nappies, put away their beds and put shoes back on
- we hang with the children for awhile and read a book to them before afternoon tea
- we sit with the children for afternoon tea
- clean up and get ready to spend the afternoon outside while we went for parents to come pick them up
-  nappy change

i love working with the children and also other workers that i work with in the room.

As an educator, my experience at Little Zak Academy was extremely disappointing and challenging. There is a lack of professional support for staff, and concerns raised by educators are often ignored or dismissed by management. Staffing shortages are common, which places excessive pressure on educators and negatively impacts the quality of care and education provided to children. High staff turnover creates an unstable environment, making it difficult to build strong relationships with children and families. Policies and expectations frequently change without clear communication, leaving educators confused and unsupported. Training opportunities are minimal, and there is little recognition for hard work or dedication. The focus often feels more business-driven than child-centered, which is discouraging for professionals who genuinely care about early childhood education. Overall, the work environment is stressful, disorganized, and lacks the respect and structure educators need to perform at their best.

Although I had multiple stressful roles my job was productive and challenging. Engaging with parents and families is a great opportunity to build relationships with children and their families. Staff are supportive and encourage team work. Great opportunities to join the future leaders meetings, management runs workshops and weekends to form team bonding with other centres. The hardest part of the job is working long hours with not alot of overtime pay or reasonable breaks. 

Writing again, as my review was deleted. 
Working at little Zak’s was exhausting. The lack of support from management and manger/managers was outrageous. Work life balance is poor as well, having to do multiple days with an unhealthy amount of OT. Management does not seem to care about its educators. 7 people resigned in the span of 2 months from one centre regarding all these issues too. Wouldn’t recommend 

I did work for Little Zaks for over a year, poor management and communication with all staff. Never being told of any changes that affect my work which can also be dangerous to children that have special dietary requirements. Had to beg for cooking equipment. Food budget is always an issue. Poor support from any of HR and the big wigs are only concerned about the $ $$$$ . Too much stress , working for LZ'S


The worst time of you life working there. None of the girls where happy aside from our boss and the room leader who spent more days sitting in the office. We had little to no resources. The favouritism was over the top and very stressful. Trainees were offered no study time and no help or proper training. We regularly put complaints to management but nothing ever changed. When I left the other girls had also put in their own resignation. Leaving was the best choice I made.

Organize and participate in recreational activities, such as games.
Observe and monitor children’s play activities.
Read to children, and teach them simple painting, drawing, handicrafts, and songs.
I learned to work in a team work or individually.
Ability to work under shift bases.
The management is perfect and helpful.
The hardest part is to look after 30 kids alone while my co-worker is absent.
The most enjoyable part is to play with kids and talking to their parents.

I can’t speak for all LZ centre, but my particular one was a zoo. The actual programs and processes were great, but unfortunately due to management and staff, the centre wasn’t able to reach it’s potential. Work drama is beyond exceeding. I had reported a staff member who was neglecting her role and the care of the children, and instead of addressing her they let me go after I refused to take $1 more an hour  it’s just a big money pit

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Early childhood teacher 25 salaries reported	$84,480 per year
Shift leader 2 salaries reported	$35.00 per hour
Center director 7 salaries reported	$103,214 per year
Senior educator 4 salaries reported	$29.13 per hour
Educator 3 salaries reported	$30.86 per hour

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