Perfect for Celebrating the Directors and Leaders Who Keep Our Early Childhood Services Going
By BEST Childcare Consulting
On 10 November 2026, we celebrate Directors Day, an opportunity to recognise the extraordinary contribution of directors and leaders working across Australia’s early childhood education and care sector.
While directors have always carried significant responsibilities, the past few years have been particularly demanding. Our sector has experienced an extraordinary period of legislative reform, workforce challenges, increased regulatory expectations, funding changes and growing responsibilities surrounding child safety.
For many directors, it has felt as though one change has barely been implemented before another arrives. Yet through it all, directors have continued to lead their teams, support families, protect children, maintain compliance and strive to provide high-quality education and care.
This year, perhaps more than ever, our directors deserve to be acknowledged, appreciated and supported.
The Past Few Years Have Not Been Easy
Anyone who has worked in early childhood leadership understands that being a director involves far more than managing the daily operation of a childcare service.
Over recent years, directors have navigated significant legislative and regulatory reforms, including changes to the National Quality Framework, strengthened child safety requirements, additional reporting obligations and increasing expectations surrounding compliance. Keeping up with these changes is challenging enough, but directors must also ensure that every educator understands their responsibilities and that new requirements are consistently implemented in everyday practice.
Workforce shortages and staffing pressures have added another layer of complexity. Recruiting qualified educators, managing unexpected absences, maintaining educator-to-child ratios, supporting trainees and retaining experienced staff have become ongoing challenges. At the same time, directors have needed to understand and implement Workforce Retention Payment arrangements, wage increases, employment conditions and associated administrative requirements.
Assessment and Rating preparation, quality improvement processes, risk assessments, policy reviews, medical management plans and documentation requirements continue to demand considerable time and attention. Directors must also support children with increasingly complex needs, work collaboratively with families and allied health professionals, and guide educators in providing inclusive and responsive education and care.
Alongside these responsibilities are the financial realities of operating a service. Rising costs, occupancy pressures, staffing budgets and maintaining affordability for families require careful management, often while directors are also supporting the emotional wellbeing and professional development of their teams.
For Western Australian directors, the commencement of the national Child Safety Amendments on 1 November 2026 represents another significant milestone. Preparing for the National Early Childhood Worker Register, mandatory child safety training and other strengthened requirements has involved considerable planning, communication and changes to established practices.
While these reforms are important for improving children’s safety and the quality of education and care, we must also recognise the people responsible for putting them into practice.
Behind every new requirement is a director who must understand it, communicate it, implement it, monitor it and support their team to get it right.
The Responsibilities That Nobody Sees
A director’s working day rarely goes according to plan. They might begin the morning preparing a staff roster, only to find themselves covering an unexpected absence, comforting a distressed child, speaking with a concerned parent, managing an incident and responding to a regulatory notification before lunchtime.
Throughout the day, they are often moving between being a leader, administrator, mentor, problem-solver, educator and sometimes even the person fixing the photocopier or organising an urgent maintenance repair.
Then there are the responsibilities that often continue after the children have gone home. Policies waiting to be updated, emails requiring responses, professional development to organise, staff members needing additional support and quality improvement plans requiring attention. There are also the difficult conversations and decisions that directors sometimes carry home with them.
Directors are often expected to have the answers, remain calm under pressure, support everyone around them and somehow find time to look after themselves. They are frequently the first person contacted when something goes wrong and the last person to receive recognition when everything goes right.
But who is looking after our directors?
Great Leadership Is About More Than Compliance
Although legislation and regulatory requirements are essential, great early childhood leadership extends well beyond meeting compliance obligations.
A great director creates an environment where children feel safe, families feel welcome and educators feel valued. They recognise the strengths of individual educators, encourage professional development, mentor emerging leaders and guide reflective practice. They understand that quality education and care is built through relationships, trust, consistency and a shared commitment to children’s wellbeing.
Strong directors also play an important role in developing a positive workplace culture. They help educators feel confident in their abilities, encourage open communication and create opportunities for collaboration. When challenges arise, they provide guidance, reassurance and practical solutions rather than simply identifying what has gone wrong.
Importantly, directors help translate legislation, frameworks and policies into meaningful everyday practices. A service may have excellent policies and procedures, but it takes effective leadership to ensure these are understood, embedded and reflected in what actually happens in classrooms, outdoor environments and everyday interactions with children.
This leadership is particularly important during periods of significant change. Educators look to their directors for clarity, direction and reassurance when new requirements are introduced. Directors must interpret information, determine what it means for their individual service and support their teams through the implementation process.
The culture of a service is often a reflection of the leadership behind it.
Director Wellbeing Matters Too
Across early childhood education and care, we regularly discuss children’s wellbeing, educator wellbeing and the importance of creating supportive environments. However, director wellbeing can sometimes be overlooked.
Leadership can be isolating, particularly when directors are managing competing expectations from families, staff, approved providers and regulatory authorities. They may feel pressure to remain available, resolve every problem and place the needs of others ahead of their own. In smaller services, directors may have limited administrative support or few opportunities to share their responsibilities with other leaders.
Over time, these pressures can contribute to stress, fatigue and burnout. Even highly experienced and capable directors can struggle when expectations continue to increase without corresponding increases in time, resources or support.
We often encourage educators to prioritise their wellbeing, take breaks and seek support when needed. Directors deserve exactly the same consideration.
Sustainable leadership requires more than resilience. It requires genuine organisational support, realistic workloads, opportunities for professional growth and the ability to take leave without feeling that everything will fall apart.
Approved providers and management committees have an important responsibility to ensure directors are appropriately supported. This may involve providing sufficient non-contact time, administrative assistance, access to mentoring, professional development opportunities and additional resources during periods of significant regulatory change.
It is also important to create a workplace culture where directors feel comfortable discussing their own challenges and asking for assistance without feeling that they are failing in their role.
Appreciating a director should not simply mean thanking them for managing an impossible workload. It should also mean making that workload more manageable.
How Can We Show Our Appreciation This Directors Day?
Directors Day provides a wonderful opportunity for educators, approved providers and families to acknowledge the people leading their services. While gifts and celebrations are thoughtful gestures, meaningful recognition also involves understanding the responsibilities directors carry and identifying practical ways to support them.
For Approved Providers and Management
Approved providers and management committees can use Directors Day as an opportunity to recognise the commitment, professionalism and leadership demonstrated by their directors throughout the year.
A personal message of appreciation, additional professional development opportunities, access to mentoring or dedicated time away from daily operational responsibilities can all be meaningful gestures. However, perhaps the most valuable action is simply asking directors what support they genuinely need.
Could administrative responsibilities be shared more effectively? Is sufficient non-contact time being provided? Are there opportunities to delegate tasks or strengthen leadership within the team? Would additional mentoring, coaching or external professional support help reduce some of the pressure?
Recognition is important, but ongoing practical support is even more valuable.
For Educators and Staff
Educators often see firsthand how much their directors contribute to the service, although the full extent of their responsibilities may not always be visible.
Directors Day is an opportunity to express appreciation for the guidance, encouragement and support they provide. A personal message recognising something your director has done for you can be particularly meaningful. Perhaps they encouraged you to undertake further study, supported you through a difficult situation, helped you develop confidence or recognised your potential as an emerging leader.
A team appreciation card, shared morning tea or collection of positive messages can be a thoughtful way to celebrate. Even a genuine conversation acknowledging the difference your director has made can have a lasting impact.
For Families
Families may not always see the many responsibilities directors manage behind the scenes. Much of their work takes place before families arrive, after they leave or during the busy hours when attention is focused on children’s needs.
However, directors play a significant role in creating the safe, welcoming and nurturing environments that families rely upon. They support educators, oversee children’s safety and wellbeing, respond to concerns and help build the relationships that make a service feel like a community.
A handwritten card, a message of thanks or simply taking a moment to recognise their efforts can mean a great deal.
For Directors Themselves
Directors Day is also an opportunity for directors to recognise their own achievements.
Think about the challenges you have navigated over the past few years, the educators you have mentored, the families you have supported and the positive changes you have introduced within your service.
Consider the difficult situations you have managed, the improvements you have helped implement and the professional growth you have encouraged in others.
You may not always see the impact of your leadership, but it is reflected in the confidence of your educators, the relationships within your service and the experiences of the children in your care.
Give yourself permission to celebrate what you have accomplished, acknowledge how much you have managed and recognise that your own wellbeing deserves attention too.
A Message From BEST to Our Early Childhood Directors
At BEST Childcare Consulting, we understand that leadership in early childhood education and care is not always easy.
Having experienced the realities of owning, operating and managing childcare services ourselves, we know that directors are often juggling multiple responsibilities, navigating difficult decisions and trying to do the very best for everyone in their care.
We also recognise just how much the sector has changed. Directors are now expected to have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of legislation, child protection, workforce requirements, educational leadership, risk management and quality improvement, while remaining present and available to their teams and families.
These are significant expectations, and they deserve to be acknowledged.
We know that many directors have spent countless hours outside their normal working day reading regulatory updates, revising policies, preparing documentation and developing systems to ensure their services remain compliant. We also know that these efforts are not always recognised because, when everything is running smoothly, much of the work happening behind the scenes goes unnoticed.
Yet without dedicated directors, our services simply could not function as they do.
To every director who has stayed back to support an educator, reassured a worried family, managed an unexpected crisis, encouraged a team member or worked tirelessly to improve their service, we want to say thank you.
Thank you for the hours that go unnoticed, the difficult conversations and decisions, and your willingness to continue learning and adapting through change. Thank you for supporting your educators, even when you need support yourself, and for the difference you make to children and families every day.
You should be proud of what you have achieved, particularly throughout these challenging years.
How BEST Can Support Our Directors
At BEST Childcare Consulting, we believe directors should not have to navigate the complexities of early childhood leadership alone.
We work alongside directors and their teams to provide practical, tailored support that reflects the realities of operating a childcare service. Our services include compliance and quality audits, Assessment and Rating preparation, Quality Improvement Plan support, policy and procedure reviews, tailored professional development and individual mentoring.
We can also work directly with educators in their classrooms, helping translate legislative requirements, policies and quality expectations into confident, consistent everyday practices. Our mentoring and coaching approach focuses on supporting educators to understand not only what is required, but how those requirements should be reflected in the way they supervise, interact with children, manage routines and deliver their educational programs.
Sometimes directors need an experienced person to work alongside them, provide another perspective, help prioritise improvements or take some of the pressure off their already demanding workload.
Our approach is about more than identifying what needs improvement. It is about supporting directors, building educator confidence and sharing the responsibilities involved in achieving quality outcomes.
Sometimes the most valuable support a director can receive is knowing they do not have to do everything themselves.
Contact us TODAY.
