What to look for and what to ask
If you have started searching for an early learning centre in Canberra, you have probably noticed that every centre website says something similar. Nurturing. Play-based. Purpose-built. All of it true, and none of it especially helpful when you are trying to work out which early learning centre is right for your child.
The decision feels heavy because it is. You are not choosing a service, you’re choosing the people who will know your child for eight or nine hours a day, often before your child can tell you how their day went. Here is what actually helps you tell centres apart.
Start with the rating, then look past it
Every early learning centre in Australia is assessed against the National Quality Standard, which covers seven quality areas including the educational program, children's health and safety, the physical environment, staffing arrangements and relationships with children. Services are rated as Excellent, Exceeding, Meeting, Working Towards or Significant Improvement Required.
You can look up any centre's rating for free on the ACECQA website before you book a tour. It is a genuinely useful filter and worth ten minutes of an evening. A rating is a snapshot, though, not the whole picture. It tells you a centre met the standard on the day it was assessed. It does not tell you whether the educator in the infant room has been there four years or four weeks. Use the rating to shortlist. Use the tour to decide.
Ask about educators before you ask about facilities
This is the single most useful shift you can make in how you tour.
Playgrounds photograph well, yet the relationship between a child and their educator is consistently identified as one of the strongest influences on how well a child settles, explores and learns.
Worth asking:
- Who will be in my child's room, and how long have they been here?
- Will my child have a consistent educator, or does the roster change week to week?
- What happens when an educator is away?
- How long have your room leaders been with the service?
A centre that answers these easily is telling you something.
This is the thinking behind our Key Educator Approach. Each child has a nominated educator who knows their routines, their preferences and the small things that matter, so families are not starting again every few weeks. You can feel confident that your child is looked after by someone who knows them and you.
Look at the room, not the foyer
The rooms start to tell you a story. Once you are in the room, stand still for a few minutes and watch rather than look around.
- Are educators down at the children's level, or supervising from the edge?
- How do they speak to a child who is upset?
- Are children absorbed in something, or drifting?
- Can children reach what they need without an adult fetching it?
- Is there evidence of children's actual work on the walls, or only decoration?
Then ask what happens on a rainy Tuesday in July. Any centre looks wonderful on a still spring morning with the doors open.
Ask how safety actually works
Child safety in early learning has changed considerably over the past two years. Since mid-2025, quality and safety have been paramount considerations in Child Care Subsidy approval, and regulators can conduct unannounced visits and publish non-compliance information.
Families are asking harder questions than they used to. They should, and a good centre will welcome them.
- How is supervision structured across the day, including at rest time and during transitions between rooms?
- What is your policy on personal mobile phones and photography in the rooms?
- Who is permitted to collect my child, and how is that verified?
- What happens if something goes wrong, and when would I be told?
- How are incidents recorded and communicated to families?
You are not being difficult by asking. You are doing exactly what a centre worth choosing would want you to do. At Wonderschool, we believe that children’s safety is the minimum, not the exception, and we are happy to talk through our systems.
Ask the practical questions too
The things families forget on a tour are usually the things they think about every week afterwards.
- How does the waitlist work, and what happens when a place comes up?
- What are the operating hours, and what happens if I am running late?
- What is included in the fee: nappies, meals, sunscreen, excursions?
- Is there a preschool program, and is it led by a degree-qualified early childhood teacher?
- How will you communicate with me day to day?
- What does settling in look like, and how many orientation visits can we do?
Trust what you notice
By the end of a tour, you will have a lot of information and one strong feeling. Pay attention to the feeling.
Did educators use the children's names? Did a child wander over to show you something? Did anyone speak directly to your child, or only to you? Most families know pretty quickly, everything above is really there to check what your instinct already told you.
Come and see for yourself
Wonderschool has seven early learning centres across Canberra and southeast Sydney: Conder, Dickson, Monash, Taylor, Throsby, Woden and Chifley in NSW. Each one is purpose-built, and each one is a little different.
Book a tour at the centre closest to you, and bring your questions.