Goodstart Early Learning Pay Rates 2026: Educator, Room Leader & Director Pay

Goodstart Early Learning is the country's largest early learning provider — a not-for-profit with more than 600 centres and a workforce of educators, early childhood teachers, centre directors and cooks. It has been the biggest single beneficiary of the government-funded educator wage rise, which its pay must pass through.

Goodstart educators are covered by the Children's Services Award 2010, and early childhood teachers by the Educational Services (Teachers) Award; Goodstart also has its own enterprise agreement (below where our corpus holds it). The award educator ladder below is the floor, and the funded wage supplement sits on top of it.

The federal awards relevant to Goodstart Early Learning roles:

• Children’s Services Award 2010 (MA000120)
• Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 (MA000077)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Goodstart Early Learning Ltd declared 18,164 employees — 21.5% casual and 96.2% women, with 832 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

The Children's Services Award 2010 (MA000120) educator ladder, after the FWC's early childhood work value restructure, is:

The government-funded educator wage supplement is paid on top of these award rates by centres that have opted in — it is not part of the award floor. Early childhood teachers sit on the Educational Services (Teachers) Award instead.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Cooks, cleaners, administration and other support workers in a centre sit on the award's support worker ladder:

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Enterprise agreements set rates above the award, with their own classification structures and allowances. Current Goodstart Early Learning agreements in our corpus (1 in total):

• Goodstart Early Learning Enterprise Agreement 2024 — approved November 2024, nominal expiry 30 November 2026.

We don't reproduce agreement dollar figures here — the agreement covering your site, state and stream is the document to read. Find your agreement, then your classification, then your pay point, and compare it with your payslip. The award tables on this page are the floor every one of these agreements must beat.

The patterns worth checking on a Goodstart Early Learning payslip:

• Qualification not matched to level — a Diploma educator paid at the Cert III level, or a room leader paid as a floor educator.
• Funded wage supplement not passed on in full to eligible educators.
• Unpaid programming and documentation time, and unpaid time before opening or after close.
• Casuals under the minimum engagement or without the 25% loading.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.