Beecroft contains 4 Long Day Care centres (188 places), 1 preschool/kindergarten facility (26 places) and 2 OSHC facilities (215 places). Combined service provision across long day care and preschool/kindergarten services, and the approximate 390 children in the cohort, sees a ratio of children per place of 2.0 - placing the area slightly below the national average for supply per child. Looking at long day care specifically against the under-5 population, the ratio is 2.3 children per place. Further breakdowns by age, to help in identifying the most in-need services, show moderate LDC provision across the infant and toddler cohort (<3yo) with 188 places across 4 facilities serving 259 children while preschool supply is moderate with 1 facility providing 26 places (6.7 children aged 3-4 per place compared to the Greater Sydney average of 8.3). Projected population decline of 12.8% in the under 5 age group between now and 2041 suggests a reduction in demand for childcare services. Other factors relevant to demand worth noting are upper quartile employment and income performance.
In assessing child care markets local school supply is a particularly important factor, given school-run convenience, and enrolment vs child care place analysis can provide useful insight into capacity both for parents seeking child care options and child care operators assessing opportunities in an area. The catchment sees a level of school enrolment relative to population of 28.5 per 100 residents with 3,090 enrolments across primary and secondary institutions. This notably elevated rate of school supply suggests many students travel to the area from beyond the immediate surrounds, typically amplifying local childcare demand given school-run proximity. As expected, the level of school places per child care place (LDC+PSK) is also higher than average. Proximity analysis saw distances of local residents to their nearest child care centre being shorter than average.
10 school catchments intersect Beecroft (note; school catchment data provided for public schools only), in which a combined 6,608 children aged under 5 reside, served by 7,498 LDC and preschool places. The overall demand-to-supply ratio across these catchments is 0.9 children per place, with limited variance in this ratio. Meanwhile, the discrepancy in this ratio between Beecroft and the intersecting school catchments highlights the need for a catchment based approach for specific site assessments.