Your 2027 waitlist looks healthy. How many families will actually enrol?

The Productivity Commission identified this problem in its 2023 draft inquiry into early childhood education and care. It noted that families can join multiple waiting lists and remain on them after finding care, leaving lists overstated or out of date. It also explained that available places may not suit a family's required age group or days. [1]

That is historical context, not a measurement of your centre's waitlist or a new finding about 2026.

Your own records are what matter now.

Families' circumstances change. Return-to-work dates move. Days change. A child who was a baby when the enquiry arrived may need a different room by the proposed start date.

Keeping that information current helps your team give families useful answers and make better decisions about where marketing support is needed.

Choose a specific planning period. For example, review a normal operating week in February 2027, then repeat the exercise for another week if room transitions or start dates change the picture.

For each room and weekday, record:

• The number of places you expect to be able to offer with your planned staffing and room arrangements.
• Existing bookings expected to continue into that period.
• Confirmed incoming bookings, including agreed additional days for current families.
• Places already held for outstanding offers, if your service holds them.
• The remaining places available to offer.

Check school departures, room transitions and changes to attendance before relying on the result. Use your service's approved operating arrangements and actual staffing plan. A theoretical maximum is not automatically an available place.

Work at room and weekday level. A centre-wide average can hide a full nursery and a preschool room with several unfilled days.

For this exercise, one vacant place on Monday and one on Friday represent two unfilled attendance days each week. They might suit one child attending both days or two children attending one day each. Be clear about the unit you are counting.

Work through one record per child. Keep siblings linked as a family, but record each child's care requirements separately.

Confirm these details:

Check duplicate records before counting children. Two enquiries from the same family about the same child should not become two opportunities in your planning.

Do not assume that being on the list means a family is ready to accept a place. They may still need to visit, understand the fees or talk through how their child will settle in.

The conversation can be simple:

Hi [first name], we're reviewing our 2027 availability at [centre] and wanted to check what care you're looking for. Are you still considering us for [child's first name]? If so, could you confirm your preferred start date and days, and whether you have any flexibility? This will help us give you an accurate update. If your plans have changed, that's completely fine too. Thanks, [name].

Use a suitable contact channel already agreed with the family. Keep personal details in your existing secure records and use a child reference in shared planning records.

If a family does not reply, mark their interest as unconfirmed and set a follow-up date. A missed message does not establish that they no longer need care.

Once the information is updated, organise each child's record into a clear status:

Keep offers, acceptances and actual starts as separate stages after this review.

A family can be interested and still decline an offer. They can accept and later change their plans. Recording the stages separately lets you see where another conversation is needed.

Apply your service's enrolment and waitlist policies when allocating places. This exercise helps you understand demand and availability; it does not replace those policies.

This is where a promising number can become misleading.

Suppose a family needs Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. You have Monday and Wednesday available, but Tuesday is full. Unless the family agrees to a different arrangement, you have not matched their care needs.

The same problem happens when several families could use one remaining Tuesday place. You may have several potential matches, but you can only allocate that place once.

Here is a deliberately simple, fictional example.

Illustrative example only. These are not Enrolment Boost client results or sector benchmarks.

A toddler room has the following places available to offer for the same reference week:

The centre has 18 unique child records on its toddler waitlist. After a review:

• Nine families confirm they still want care.
• Six remain unconfirmed.
• Three confirm they no longer need a place.

Of the nine interested families, seven require days the room cannot currently offer. Two families each want Monday and Friday, can start in the reference period and have confirmed those days suit them.

Those two children could potentially fill four attendance days each week. Even if both accept and start, one Monday place and one Friday place would remain available.

The centre now has a much clearer picture: two suitable booking patterns to progress, seven interested families whose needs it cannot currently meet, six follow-ups outstanding and two weekly attendance days still to fill if the proposed bookings proceed.

The original count of 18 did not explain any of that.

An updated spreadsheet only helps if someone acts on it.

Every active record needs a named team member, a next action and a due date.

For a family with a suitable match, that might mean arranging a tour or explaining the offer and enrolment process. For another family, it might mean answering a fee question before they can make a decision.

Where the requested days are unavailable, be clear about what you can offer and when you will check again. Ask whether alternatives would help, without pressuring the family to accept an arrangement that does not work for them.

Avoid suggesting that a place is available until the person responsible has checked it. Likewise, do not leave a family with the impression that a place is secured while the offer is still awaiting acceptance.

If keeping track of these conversations is difficult, review your enquiry and tour follow-up process. Your team should be able to see the last conversation and the next agreed action without searching through several inboxes.

Once you have checked the waitlist against availability, your marketing brief becomes more specific.

You might need enquiries for preschool places from February. You might need families seeking toddler care on Mondays and Fridays. Or you might have enough suitable interest to focus first on answering questions and progressing tours.

That is a better basis for deciding what to promote and how much support is needed.

A long waitlist alone is not a reason to stop advertising. Equally, increasing the budget will not resolve unanswered questions from families who are already interested.

Keep website and advertising messages consistent with the places you can genuinely offer. If availability changes, update the message. Families should receive the same information from the ad, the website and the person who answers their enquiry.

Broader childcare marketing works best when the team promoting the service understands the rooms, days and start dates the centre needs to fill.

During your 2027 enrolment planning, set a short weekly review with the person responsible for enquiries and the person responsible for room availability.

Check:

1. 1.What has changed in room and weekday availability?
2. 2.Which families have confirmed their requirements since the last review?
3. 3.Which complete booking patterns can now be offered?
4. 4.Which offers need an answer, and which accepted bookings have actually started?
5. 5.Which follow-ups are overdue, and who will complete them?

Keep the reporting simple. Count unique children when reporting interest, and attendance days when reporting how much weekly availability their bookings could fill. Keep the reference week consistent.

For longer-term families, agree an appropriate check-in date. They do not need repeated calls simply because your team reviews the list each week.

Start with the room you are least certain about. Check its expected availability, contact the relevant families and work through the booking patterns one by one.

The question to take into your next enrolment meeting is:

Which children could take the places we expect to have available, on the days their families actually need?

If that question reveals wider gaps in how enquiries are handled, take our free Occupancy Health Audit. It is a short questionnaire to help you review your enrolment journey and decide where to focus next.