Guardian’s Parent Survey Results 2018

Thank you to the 3,500 families who recently completed our parent survey, where we asked for your feedback on current satisfaction levels and income/activity levels in preparation for the introduction of the new Child Care Subsidy (CCS) system on 2 July.

I would also like to thank the 1,000 families that completed a follow up 20-minute survey where we sought your feedback on a range of new initiatives that we are considering introducing across our network of early learning centres. The feedback has been very illuminating and changed our thinking on a number of these initiatives.

Our Net Promoter Score

In seeking feedback on our performance, we asked you how likely you were to refer your centre to a friend on a scale of 1-10 and then asked for the reasoning behind your score. The results were used to calculate a Net Promoter Score (NPS) for each centre. NPS is a global standard for calculating customer satisfaction, and is calculated as follows:

• Determine the % of families who scored their centre 9-10 (promoters)
• Determine the % of families who scored their centre 1-6 (detractors)
• Deduct the % detractors from the % promoters to create an NPS score

Note that a score or 7 or 8 is considered passive and hence these scores are excluded from the calculations. Guardian’s NPS across 100 centres this year was 33, up from 29 in 2017. Our better centres scored 50-70 (which is world class performance), while our poorer performing centres scored less than 10.

What families liked

There were so many wonderful comments from the huge number of families that scored us 9 and 10, with key themes for high parent satisfaction including:

• The friendly, caring, professional, welcoming educators
• My child is happy attending the centre, so I am happy too
• Great environments, cleanliness, food, educational practice etc
• Our play-based approach to learning and development
• Welcoming, accommodating and communicative Centre Manager
• The centre community feels like a second home

Key issues

For the families who weren’t as satisfied with their centre, the key issues you told us that we need to improve on included:

• Improve educator retention
• Improve centre communications
• Consistent use of Story Park
• Centre Manager communications about centre activities, changes to routines, meals schedule, educator rosters etc.
• Educator engagement with families at drop off and at pick up times
• Make the morning drop off a more welcoming process (e.g. people know me and my child, consistent faces in the room, staff being with children, centre manager/ office staff available)
• Make the evening collection a more orderly/easy process (e.g. belongings together, staff know about my child’s day, staff are with children instead of packing up, children are clean, etc)
• Improve the visibility of learning for preschool children and help out educators improve their ability to articulate Guardian’s approach to school readiness

A number of families commented on the processed/sugary nature of some of the food being served in our centres, which is consistent with our intent to move to more of a wholefoods menu plan. Visibility of menus and StoryPark photos of meal time were also requested.

Next steps

We are committed to being a more parent-focused organisation in the future, and our starting point is to address the issues you have raised and to build on the strengths you have identified across all of our centres. We will keep you posted in the coming months as to our progress.

I also note that we have a much better appreciation of the impact of the new Childcare Subsidy on our families thanks to the feedback you provide on your income and activity levels. We continue to work on the implementation of the new system and will distribute a parent update in the coming days.

In the meantime, please note that all parents must register for the new Childcare Subsidy by 30 June, otherwise you will be charged full fees from 2 July 2018. You need a MyGov account linked to Centrelink and then you can register, which is a relatively painless process that will take 5-10 minutes.

We are very grateful for the high level of participation in the important parent surveys over recent months and for the positive feedback our educators have been receiving for the important work they undertake each day with your children.

This important feedback also provides us guidance, direction and prioritisation of the work we need to do to get better.

So thanks everyone,

Thomas Hardwick
CEO & Founder
Guardian Early Learning Group