Perfect for BEST Childcare Maintenance, Design and Improvement service
By BEST Childcare Consulting
There is a big difference between maintaining a childcare centre and creating an environment where children cannot wait to explore what is around the next corner. At BEST, we believe children deserve both. An early childhood environment must, first and foremost, be safe, well maintained and suitable for the children who use it. But meeting these requirements should never mean creating spaces that are sterile, predictable or uninspiring. A truly great childcare environment can be safe and exciting. Functional and beautiful. Compliant and imaginative. It should invite children to climb, investigate, create, get messy, wonder, build, hide, talk, experiment, take appropriate risks and simply enjoy being children. This philosophy isn’t something new to BEST. We have lived it.
Childcare maintenance, repairs, playground design and improvements in Perth WA. BEST combines engineering and childcare experience to create safe, inspiring early learning environments.
From Designing and Building a Childcare Centres to Running them for years
Before BEST began offering this service to other early childhood providers, Craig spent many years doing exactly this work within our own childcare services. With a Degree in Mechanical Engineering, electrical qualifications and more than 30 years of engineering experience, Craig brought a unique skill set into early childhood education and care.
He designed the childcare environment, built it and then owned and operated the service for approximately 15 years. That last part is important. It is one thing to design or build a childcare centre. It is another thing entirely to operate what you have built every day for 15 years. You quickly discover what works and what doesn’t.
You see where educators naturally position themselves to supervise children. You learn which gates, doors, surfaces and fixtures withstand years of intensive use. You discover where storage really needs to be, which spaces children are drawn towards and which areas simply don’t work as well as they looked on a plan.
You also learn that a childcare environment is never really “finished”. It evolves with the children, educators, families, regulatory expectations and the service itself.
From a Building to an Exceeding Childcare Environment
The service Craig designed, built, operated and continually improved upon went on to achieve an Exceeding National Quality Standard rating. That experience helped shape the philosophy behind BEST today. Quality is not created by making everything look perfect immediately before Assessment and Rating. It develops through the decisions made every day. It can be seen in how a broken gate is addressed, how an awkward space is reconsidered, how children’s ideas influence an outdoor environment, how educators reflect on supervision, how equipment is maintained and how a service continues asking: “How could we make this better for our children?” That is the approach we now want to bring to other childcare services.
A Playground Should Be More Than Equipment
Years ago, when developing our own outdoor environments, we deliberately moved away from thinking only in terms of a traditional “playground”. We thought about creating a play space. That distinction still matters to us.
A great outdoor environment does not necessarily require the biggest climbing frame or the most expensive catalogue equipment. Think about what children actually love. Water travelling down a rocky stream. A mud kitchen filled with mysterious creations. A cubby tucked away somewhere unexpected. Logs that become bridges today and something completely different tomorrow. A huge sandpit where a child can spend an hour constructing a world. Loose parts that don’t tell children how they must be used. Plants children can touch, smell and investigate. Places to run and places to retreat. Spaces for noisy play alongside quieter spaces for thinking, talking and imagining.
Our philosophy has always been that outdoor environments should provide opportunities for active play, social interaction, creativity, imagination, nature, exploration and appropriate challenge. Children need environments that leave room for their ideas.
Safe Does Not Have to Mean Boring
Of course, safety matters enormously. Children need environments that are well designed, appropriately constructed, effectively supervised and properly maintained. But the goal should not be to remove every challenge from childhood. Good design asks a more thoughtful question: How can we create exciting opportunities for children while appropriately managing the risks? That might mean considering supervision sightlines while designing a new feature. It might mean thinking about where children will climb before deciding where something should be positioned. It could mean considering traffic flow, age groups, fall areas, storage, accessibility, surfaces and how educators will actually supervise the environment once 20 excited children are using it.
This is where Craig’s combination of engineering knowledge and childcare experience becomes particularly valuable. He doesn’t just see a structure. He sees how that structure will function within a childcare service.
Sometimes the Best Improvement Isn’t a New Playground
Quality improvement does not always mean starting again. Many services already have wonderful environments with enormous potential. They may simply have become tired. A sandpit needs rejuvenating. An unused corner could become an imaginative play area. An old structure could be repaired or repurposed. Storage could be redesigned so children can independently access resources. A garden could become a sensory environment. A blank area could become somewhere for construction, water play, art or quiet exploration. A playground may need a series of smaller improvements rather than an expensive complete replacement. This is an area we are particularly passionate about. What could the space you already have become?
Design It, Build It – Then Maintain It
Another lesson from operating childcare services for so many years is that good design must consider what happens after the project is finished. Something can look fantastic on opening day but be impractical to clean, difficult to maintain or unsuitable for the intensity of daily childcare use. Good childcare design therefore needs to consider durability, maintenance and functionality from the beginning.
And once an environment has been created, it needs looking after. Small maintenance problems can quickly become larger problems — and in childcare, some can also become child-safety concerns. A gate that isn’t reliably securing. A loose fixture. Deteriorating timber. Damaged fencing. A lifting surface. Broken equipment. A protruding screw. These aren’t glamorous quality-improvement projects, but addressing them promptly is part of creating a quality environment.
That is why BEST’s new service brings design, projects, maintenance, repairs and preventative maintenance together.
Don’t Wait Until Everything Breaks
We also want to help services move away from purely reactive maintenance. Rather than waiting until there is a long list of things that are broken, BEST can work with a service to audit its maintenance and improvement needs and develop a forward plan.
- What needs immediate attention?
- What could develop into a safety concern?
- What preventative maintenance should be scheduled?
- What could be improved?
- What would we love this environment to become in 12 months?
Not everything needs to happen today. Quality improvement can be planned around the service’s priorities, budget and timeframe. And because BEST understands the Quality Improvement Plan process, the work undertaken can also be documented as evidence of reflection, action and continuous improvement rather than simply disappearing into a maintenance invoice.
Compliance Is Part of Creating a Quality Environment
In childcare, maintenance is about much more than keeping a service looking good. In Western Australia, Approved Providers have legal responsibilities under the Education and Care Services National Law (WA) and National Regulations (WA), which are monitored and enforced by the Education and Care Regulatory Unit (ECRU). Regulation 103 specifically requires service premises, furniture and equipment to be safe, clean and in good repair, while other physical-environment requirements address matters including fencing, equipment, outdoor space, shade and premises designed to facilitate supervision.
Services are also workplaces and therefore have responsibilities under Western Australia’s Work Health and Safety legislation. This includes identifying hazards, eliminating risks where reasonably practicable and otherwise minimising them, as well as maintaining the work environment, plant and structures so they do not create risks to health and safety. For childcare services, good preventative maintenance therefore supports several responsibilities at once — children’s safety, educator safety, effective supervision, regulatory compliance and the ongoing quality of the physical environment. A loose gate, deteriorating piece of equipment, damaged surface or poorly planned alteration can be much more than a maintenance issue. Identifying concerns early, documenting them and taking timely action demonstrates that the service is actively managing its environment rather than simply waiting for something to go wrong.
One Person Who Understands the Bigger Picture
Childcare Directors already have enough to do.
Finding one person to repair a gate, another to look at fencing, someone else for electrical work, a landscaper for an outdoor project and yet another contractor to coordinate everything can consume an enormous amount of time. Craig can provide a single point of contact and help coordinate the maintenance and improvement process. Where specialist or licensed contractors are required, these can be incorporated into the planning and coordination of the project.
And because childcare doesn’t conveniently stop operating so maintenance can occur, pre-arranged work can also be undertaken before or after operating hours and on weekends without an additional weekend surcharge.
BEST also offers an Urgent Make Safe service for those unexpected maintenance issues that may create an immediate safety concern and require prompt attention.
Quality Areas 2 and 3 Working Together
There is a natural connection between the environment we provide and the safety and wellbeing of children within it. Quality Area 2 – Children’s Health and Safety and Quality Area 3 – Physical Environment should not exist independently in practice. A thoughtfully designed environment can support supervision. Good maintenance can reduce hazards. Accessible resources can support children’s agency. Natural environments can encourage exploration. Flexible spaces can support different forms of play. Well-considered quiet areas can support children’s regulation and wellbeing. Open-ended environments can encourage creativity rather than prescribing what children should do. This is where physical maintenance becomes something much bigger. It becomes part of educational quality.
Creating a Little Bit of Magic
Perhaps the easiest thing to lose when discussing regulations, standards, risk assessments, maintenance schedules and compliance is the reason the environment exists in the first place.
Children.
We want children to walk outside and experience wonder and awe. Those little moments matter. Some of our strongest memories of childhood are not of perfectly organised spaces. They are of the places where our imagination was allowed to take over. At BEST, we want to help childcare services create more of those places. Places that meet their responsibilities for children’s safety. Places educators can effectively work within. Places that are thoughtfully designed and properly maintained. But also places with wonder, challenge, nature, creativity, mess, laughter, discovery and fun. Because a great childcare environment shouldn’t simply be somewhere children are kept safe.
It should be somewhere childhood happens.
Let’s Make a Plan for Your Service
You don’t necessarily need a brand-new playground. You might have one little problem that needs fixing. You might have an outdoor area that has never quite worked. You might want a preventative maintenance plan. You might have a tired playground with enormous potential. Or perhaps you have an ambitious idea and don’t quite know how to turn it into reality.
Talk to Craig at BEST.
Let’s walk through your service, talk about what isn’t working, identify what needs attention and imagine what could be possible.
Then let’s make a plan that works for your children, your educators, your service and your budget.
BEST – Braig Educational Services & Training
Childcare Maintenance • Design • Projects • Consulting • Quality Improvement
Craig: 0421 994 454
craig@braig.com.au
www.braig.com.au
