What should you ask an enrichment provider?
Eleven questions, in the order they matter. This is written to be useful whichever provider you end up choosing, including one that is not us. Pibbly’s own answers are in the second column, and you are welcome to ignore them and just take the questions.
Swimming, music, dance, sport, languages, incursions. Most services are approached several times a term, usually by someone with a nice folder, and there is rarely time to work out what to ask before the meeting.
Who exactly will be in the room, and can I see their Blue Card?
Anyone working with children in Queensland needs a current Working with Children Check, and the card is held by a person, not a company. A provider who sends different staff each week is asking you to re-verify each week. Ask for the card of the person who will actually attend, and ask what happens when they are sick.
Pibbly’s answer
Every session is delivered in person by Karin Jordaan, a qualified early childhood teacher with QCT registration and a current Blue Card. There is no roster of contractors. If she is unwell the session is rescheduled rather than covered by a stranger.
What insurance do you carry, and can I see the certificate of currency?
Public liability is the one every service asks for. Professional indemnity is the one most forget, and it is the relevant one when the risk is advice or instruction rather than a trip hazard. Ask for the certificate, check the expiry date, and check the cover amount against your own service's requirement.
Pibbly’s answer
Ask us and we will send the certificate of currency before the first session. Cover details are not published here because a certificate with a date on it is worth more to you than a sentence on a website.
Will you ever be alone with a child?
The answer should be no, without hesitation, and it should be the provider's own policy rather than something they agree to when you raise it. Sessions should run inside your supervision arrangements and your ratios, with your educators present.
Pibbly’s answer
No. Sessions run within your own supervision arrangements and ratios, with your educators in the room. There is no unsupervised contact at any point.
How does this map to the EYLF and the QKLG?
A provider who cannot answer this is selling you an activity, not a programme. You should get named outcomes, not a general claim that it supports learning. You are the one who has to defend the choice at assessment.
Pibbly’s answer
Sessions are play-based and built against the Early Years Learning Framework and the Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guideline, mapping to EYLF Outcome 5 and the QKLG numeracy descriptors.
What will I have for my Quality Improvement Plan?
Something physical and dated beats a photograph of a happy child. Ask what the service is left holding at the end of a term, and whether it is produced automatically or whether your educators have to make it.
Pibbly’s answer
Every child takes home a workbook page each week, which gives families something visible and gives you something concrete for your QIP. Your educators produce none of it.
Who handles enrolments and payments?
This is where enrichment quietly becomes administration. If your service collects money, chases unpaid families or issues receipts, the programme has a staffing cost even when the sessions are free. Ask who the parent's contract is actually with.
Pibbly’s answer
Parents enrol and pay Pibbly directly. Your service never handles a payment, an invoice, a refund or a form.
What does it cost the service?
Ask for the number including staff time. A provider that needs an educator in the room to run the session, or an hour of admin a week, is not free even when the invoice says nothing.
Pibbly’s answer
Nothing. No fee, no minimum numbers, and no staff time beyond having your educators in the room as usual.
Can we try it before committing?
A provider confident in the programme will let you see it with your own children before you put it in the newsletter. If a trial is refused, ask why.
Pibbly’s answer
The first session is free, for one group, at a time that suits you. No commitment and no paperwork. If your families do not love it, that is the end of it.
What happens on public holidays, closures and staff absence?
Get the cancellation position in writing before you start, both directions. Services close, providers get sick, and this is the question that becomes a difficult conversation in week six if nobody asked it in week one.
Pibbly’s answer
Where a session is affected by a public holiday or a centre closure, Pibbly works with families and the service to arrange a make-up session where availability allows.
Do you photograph the children?
Check this against your own consent arrangements before the first session, not after a photograph appears somewhere. Marketing use is the part that catches services out.
Pibbly’s answer
No. Pibbly does not photograph or publish images of the children in its sessions. Every image on this website is an illustration, deliberately.
What is your ABN, and is the business GST registered?
A quick lookup on the ABN Lookup register tells you the entity name, how long it has traded and whether it is GST registered. It takes thirty seconds and it is the cheapest due diligence available.
Pibbly’s answer
ABN 55 992 914 375. Pibbly is not GST registered, because turnover is below the $75,000 threshold, so no GST is charged.
What is the question nobody asks?
“What happens if it does not work?”
Not the refund policy. The exit. How much notice, what your families are told, and whether you are left explaining to twenty parents why a thing they paid for has stopped. A provider who has thought about their own failure is a provider who has thought.
For Pibbly the answer is that parents contract with Pibbly, not with you, in blocks of four sessions. If it ends, it ends at the end of a block and the conversation is ours to have, not yours.
Want to put us through this list?
The first session is free, for one group, at a time that suits you. Ask for the certificate of currency and the Blue Card at the same time and we will send both.
Enquiries answered within 2 business days.