Boost your KindiCare Rating
If you work in childcare, then here's some inside info to help you improve your early learning service’s KindiCare Rating in 2024.
BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE
The KindiCare Rating tells families a lot about the quality, reputation and general appeal of your early learning service, and if you’d like to improve your KindiCare Rating in the New Year, there are a couple of things you can try.
Although we give no guarantees, it may be possible to improve your KindiCare Rating by putting a little effort into your listing, and before we share a few tips, let’s do a quick recap of how the KindiCare Rating is calculated.
The KindiCare Rating is a unique rating between NR (Not Rated) and 10.0 that indicates how a childcare service is performing, and it is data-driven and updated every 24 hours.
The KindiCare Rating provides a comprehensive, real-time picture of quality and value for money that’s simple for everyone to understand, and KindiCare’s algorithm calculates each service’s KindiCare Rating by looking at more than 500,000 data points from the KindiCare App and KindiCare Childcare Comparison Website.
Our algorithm comes up with an independent KindiCare Rating for each service by combining information, including:
- Government service quality audits, ratings, reviews and trends
- Community feedback aggregated by KindiCare from several sources, including parent reviews
- The currency and quality of the information available for the service
- The type of childcare service and characteristics of its provider, centre and offering, and
- The stability and length of operation of the service’s childcare provider.
You can read more about the KindiCare Rating here and here, and when it comes to numbers, a KindiCare Rating of 8.5 to 9.0 is Very Good, 9.0 to 9.5 is Excellent, and 9.5 to 10.0 is Outstanding.
Now for the tips!
If your KindiCare Rating is worse than you’d like, or you’re keen to make a great rating even greater, there are a few actions that may help.
The first thing you can do is have a good look at your centre listing on the KindiCare platform.
If there is basic information in your Childcare Marketplace Listing, and a note that says, ‘The provider has not provided details of the services offered at this centre,’ then we recommend that you claim your centre and populate your listing with helpful and appealing information.
You can claim your centre for free here, then add detail to your listing, but to reach more families in successful ways, it’s a good idea to sign up with a paid (though very affordable) KindiCare plan.
If you’ve already claimed your centre and completed your listing, then we suggest that you look at it with a critical eye, seeing where you can make your centre shine!
This could mean:
- Adding more info to your ‘About the Centre' section
- Ticking lots of boxes in the ‘Centre Features & Inclusions’ section
- Adding a personal quote from your Centre Director in the ‘Additional Centre Information’ section, and/or
- Adding bright and appealing photos of your centre’s people and facilities.
You can also improve your KindiCare Rating by actively seeking positive reviews from parents and care-givers.
Obviously, you can’t pressure someone into saying something nice about your service, but if you feel families are happy with your offering, you can explain that it’s easy to post a parent review by:
- Logging into the KindiCare App or Childcare Comparison Website
- Searching for your service
- Scrolling down to ‘Parent Reviews,’ and
- Clicking the ‘Write a Review’ button.
It’s also helpful to train your staff to look for positive interactions and feedback from families, then ask parents if they’d like to share their great experience with others by leaving a positive review.
To make things super easy, the KindiCare team can provide a QR code for your centre that takes parents direct to your listing when it’s scanned.
It's definitely worth putting some effort into your online reputation, because lots of five star ratings and glowing reviews from your childcare community will reflect well in your KindiCare Rating, and they’re also really helpful for people who are looking for childcare and deciding which services to enquire and apply with. 
Another thing you can do is look at the quality rating you’ve been given by your regulatory authority.
Being rated highly under the National Quality Standard has a positive effect on your KindiCare Rating, and if it has been more than two years since you were last assessed and rated by your regulatory authority, you can apply with them for a re-assessment and re-rating.
There is a fee for this, but if you feel your service (or an aspect or element of it) has improved since the last assessment and rating, it may be worth doing this to (hopefully) see your rating improve.
If your high quality service has been rated Exceeding National Quality Standard in all seven quality areas, you may want to apply for the Excellent rating, which definitely does good things for your reputation and KindiCare Rating.
And if you have a KindiCare Rating of NR, it’s good to know that isn’t a big cross against your centre.
It just means that you’ve been around for less than two years and are yet to be assessed under the National Quality Framework.
As soon as you get assessed and rated by your local regulatory authority, the KindiCare algorithm will be able to digest all the data about your service and provide an independent KindiCare Rating.
In the meantime, it’s still highly beneficial to have an appealing Childcare Marketplace Listing on the KindiCare platform, with helpful information and positive parent reviews for your NR service. 
In summary, it is possible to improve your service’s KindiCare Rating by being proactive, and when you take action, you may see your number change quickly.
Your service’s KindiCare Rating is updated every night by our algorithm, taking into account any new information we receive, and this is good for you and good for families.
It means you can see improvements at your service being reflected in real-time in your KindiCare Rating, and your current and prospective families can rest assured that the number they’re seeing, is an up-to-date indication of how your centre is performing.
