daycare teacher

child care director

childcare provider

school program staff

educator

TeamKids

*Most of the issues I mention were not apparent at the small school that I worked at, albeit for less time.

A typical day of work is setting up (quickly) with a set structure and layout, but usually day-to-day changes in materials and resources.

Management can be great or non-existent. While in my experience, they can be great with working with children and leadership, they often don't report to the chain of command about issues with resources or talk with parents or the school about behavioural issues until absolutely necessary. I've had children be verbally or, once even physically aggressive with me and other staff, but it is not dealt with outside of "talking to's" until it is a big enough issue (usually the deciding factor being other children being influenced. To be fair, there is very little micromanaging which allows for a positive work environment and differentiation. There is a lot of trust put into the Educators which is empowering, but can sometimes be nerve-wracking.

Ratios were often not kept in line with the promise of 1-10 in the bigger schools.

This job was extremely valuable in terms of learning how to work with kids, being adaptable, resourceful and innovative. I also learned responsibility and interpersonal skills. I made some of the best friends I currently have from working with them at TeamKids.

The short shifts are great for managing university or schooling or other jobs or even just leisure time. If I worked in the morning from 7-9, I had time to myself during the day before work from 2:30-5:30 or so. The hours were very flexible and based on your availability. I was guaranteed shifts every week, usually multiple.

Ultimately, I quit because, despite the good pay, relationships with children and staff, and valuable skills I was learning, the high turnover, daily stress and bad management meant I felt I had gained all I wanted from the job and wanted something slightly more easy-going. 

 I barely worked during the Covid-19 outbreak as priority was given to full-time and part-time DOS and 2IC's so I would have had to quickly find another job if I was dependent on that income alone (which happened to a lot of my peers).


Unfortunately, there is no support from management to uphold the 7 Quality standards (NQS) set out by the ACECQA. 
1.  At times programming was inadequate and inappropriate for age groups. Activities were too simple creating boredom & frustration amongst the older children in the group. 
2 & 3. Some furniture in the room were reported to be dangerous but nothing was done about it. The Woolooware Centre had never had a commercial clean for over 12 months from the time of opening to when I left. This was reported several times to management. There were areas that staff were not able to clean, staff did their best with what was available.
4. Staff were employed without qualifications and shifts were changed for friends, management undermining suggestions. Friends first rather than what is best for the children. 
5. Generally the children are wonderful, the lack of organisation & consistency from team kids meant we could not always follow through with activities. Having a toxic uncooperative staff environment, and gossiping staff is not a conducive environment to build relationships or trust with children. Children were given special treatment leaving others out creating an unfair environment for all. It was frowned upon to report issues or seek intervention making the environment very confusing for children. I spent 2 months trying to access awards for children through the internal system. There was no support. 
6 & 7. Efforts to engage in community projects like composting projects via council was pushed aside as was any other suggestion. Do the bare minimum and rewrite or make up reports if NQS standards were not complete or fulfilled (which I refused to do). Leadership is zero, any educator should run not walk from this environment. 


They seem to only care about money and filling shifts than the wellbeing of staff and children. The resources were sometimes okay and sometimes very cheap and poor e.g. post it notes were marketed as the 'cube challenge'. The parents are paying way too much of a premium for what is provided. Incredibly odd and long hours can be 8-10-12 hour shifts with only a half hour break 6:30am to 6:30pm. They often change the location of your shift at the last minute and cut your shift in half as well. The excursions were good though. I think that if HR were nicer to the staff it would be a better place to work for. Some coordinators are friendly and go through the ropes with new staff. Some coordinators don't do anything and pass the buck to the educator while spending most of their time staring down at their phone. Some coordinators are condescending and will make  the educators do work they just don't want to do. e.g. stand for 3 hours in the freezing cold and wet in the shade watching the kids in the playground while standing in the sun themselves or having chats with other adult staff members (all 3 of them in the sunny area together) rather than engaging the kids. Be warned only do this job if you are seriously desperate for cash but then again there are jobs out there where the pay is better and the treatment is better. Camp Australia although now defunct did it better. They staggered their start and finish times and the working conditions were much much better. Their activities and excursions were better. 

In my experience, I was expected to tolerate abuse from the children, families, coworkers and school staff. There was a lack of communication in all areas and I did not find that I was fairly compensated for the work I did, the workplace culture  was extremely toxic, and felt I could never do enough to satisfy their demands, and was asked to work outside my job role to an extreme. I was placed in many unsafe situations, and found that this didn’t appear to be a concern to this employer at all. Their primary focus seemed to be raising numbers of enrolled children and making profits, rather than providing a safe and supportive environment for the children and staff. I ended up resigning when I felt so burnt out and was fed up with stretching myself extremely thin just for the stresses to continue and receive no support. I was expected and asked  to purchase food for the service and was never reimbursed for this. I became exhausted with having to manage the concerns of the school, parents and children and received very little directions and strategies from manager and HR when I raised concerns, I became sick of having to constantly protect myself and my safety, feeling belittled and threatened by school staff, parents, and other educators. The money is just not worth the amount you are expected to give and provide, they seem to just run off the good will of educators. 

I have been working with team kids for almost a year. I love to work with different schools and different staff. The program is very educational and fun. The kids love the incursion and excursions during the school holidays.

However, the management has been very terrible recently. During school holidays, I got a shift at one school and I went there in the morning. After one hour, the staffing team called the service and asked me to go to another school. I went to another school and the coordinator said that they don’t need me there so I came back to the original school. The staffing team promised to pay me extra two hours for petrol and travelling. However, the payroll team sent me an email one week later saying that it wasn’t written down on the notes. They won’t pay me.  

Besides, I got an after-school care shift at one school. My shift started at 3:00 pm. The director of the school called me at 2:55 pm. I was driving so I didn’t answer her call. When I arrived at the school, I saw another educator just arrived, too. We went in and the director said that she got a call from the staffing team, one of us has to go home because the service was on the ratio. It was ridiculous. The staffing team treats their staff like a ‘ball’. If they want you they ask you to go everywhere, and if they don’t want you, just kick you away. 

TeamKids only cares about making money and not at all about the children or their staff - only what comes out of the parents' wallets. Staff are frequently pressured and guilt-tripped into working when unavailable or if the venue is too far to travel, by saying things such as, "it would be a real shame if you couldn't step up and be a team player by doing this", "we don't have anyone else for this shift, so if you can't do it then you will be the cause of this center closing for the day", "I know you've said no to doing this shift, but it would really show some great team leadership and commitment to TeamKids if you could help us out", and constant badgering and persisting after saying NO to doing a shift. 

The resources used are the cheapest they can find, and I have never worked a holiday program where every activity has enough resources in my four years of working for this bogus company. Area managers are also completely useless and offer zero support, clearly showing that they would rather be anywhere else than helping coordinators. They love to feel like they're better than us because they're area manager.

The kids are wonderful and the HR company looks as flashy as possible to parents who are forking out way too much money for this program, but behind the scenes, HR treats their staff atrociously. So glad I left.

If you are qualified, confident and good at your job, do not work for this company! By the time you leave you will be a shell of yourself. 
Bullying from management, very cliquey. If you are a favourite you become a friend and will climb the ladder fast. 
If you are not, you will not move at all and you will be constantly put under pressure with unrealistic expectations and gossiped about.
They will tell you the dozens of pages of paperwork each week is  a "legal requirement" but majority is not. A lot of admin expectations but will not give you the time or pay to do it. 
Management micromanaging everything you do.
Very difficult to get support when dealing with challenging behaviours. 
Always short staffed. I consistent assistant educators. 
Now I've been with a different company for a fair period of time, it's opened my eyes to just how much TeamKids takes advantage of their staff. 

The most enjoyable part of the job? .the connections and professional relationships built with the children & families. When you are passionate about what you do then the children and families will give back ten fold. 

A days work is typically based around breakfast/afternoon tea, then educational activities, and then sports activities. 

I learned to hold higher standards to myself, the quality of the management and the disregard for staff mental health was shocking about 6-8 months in. 

The management was bad, any time off put in would be asked about the day of, any concerns regarding student behaviour never went any further than speaking to the students parents. 

The workplace culture was very buddy-buddy, if you weren’t friends with the director/2IC, you were left doing the “bad” jobs like cleaning the entire room while other educators got to go out on the field each shift. 

The hardest part of the job was keeping the willpower to stay, some days I would go home with bruises, some days I would be told nasty things to my face, it got really difficult. 

The most enjoyable part of the job was by far the sporting activities and excursions, they were something new and exciting for the students to do and interact with, and they would be so happy and engaged and it made it very worth while. 


Behind the slick marketing is a company with poor management and a toxic work culture.  It is little wonder that so many staff are leaving.  

Many staff are new to the industry and unqualified making it difficult to run the program and support them to learn, especially when there are children with challenging behaviour.  

Rostering can be a nightmare with such a high turnover of staff and uni students that are unavailable.  It can be especially challenging when rostering for inclusion support.  In the holidays, they often don't end up having inclusion support staff as they are just trying to meet the legal ratio (1:15).  TeamKids keep taking on new services when they are struggling to staff the ones they already have.

There are not enough admin hours to complete the work which includes food ordering, program planning, Lunchtime Legends program, clubs planning, term challenges and meetings.  There is no paid overtime either.

There is an 'in crowd' resulting in little chance for advancement.

It's hard to believe how well TeamKids has retained its people-oriented culture since I started here 3 years ago. 

I've worked for a number of companies over the years, and never had a I seen a company that was so dedicated to their staff as well as their customers. 3 years on, I've worked in a number of roles, from running programs with the kids to supporting the human resources crew, and the culture has not diluted - it's only got stronger!

I can't recommend TeamKids enough, especially as an education student, training to be a teacher.  The experience TeamKids provides is invaluable towards establishing positive workplace relationships in the industry - with children, teachers, parents, and education based businesses.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Daycare teacher 407 salaries reported	$35.05 per hour
Child care director 183 salaries reported	$76,920 per year
Childcare provider 353 salaries reported	$33.61 per hour
School program staff 39 salaries reported	$29.02 per hour
Educator 14 salaries reported	$32.54 per hour

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