Student placements are not a staffing strategy: The missing piece from our workforce conversation

In our previous role as Directors of early childhood services we regularly welcomed university pre-service teachers. We did so deliberately. Placement students brought contemporary pedagogical thinking, current research, and fresh questions that challenged and enriched our educator teams. Their presence prompted us to articulate why we teach the way we do, not just how.

 

Just as importantly, as leaders, we understood placements as a professional responsibility, an opportunity to nurture, mentor, and inspire emerging educators to see early childhood education and care as a career worth committing to. This responsibility was firmly embedded in our team culture.

 

Fast-forward to our current role supporting pre-service teachers across early learning settings, and the picture is now far more fractured.

 

Alongside reports of thoughtful mentorship and inspiring practice, we receive ever increasing communications from students who report feeling disorganised, unsafe, or profoundly devalued, often during their very first experience in an early childhood service. Students tell us:

 

“My supervising teacher didn’t know I was coming on placement and doesn’t know what they need to do.”

 

“I am being left by myself with the children.”

 

“I have been asked to help out in other rooms because they are short staffed.”

 

“I was in the babies’ room. My supervising teacher didn’t come and see me at all.”

 

For some students, these experiences have been so dispiriting that they have changed degrees entirely, leaving early childhood education for primary teaching before their careers have even begun. As self-identified lifelong advocates for early childhood teaching, each time we hear this, it breaks something, personally, professionally, and collectively.

 

What follows in this article is not a critique of educators, but a deeper examination of what happens when placements are treated as a staffing solution rather than a pedagogical and professional commitment, and what this means for the future of our workforce.

 

In the midst of current workforce shortages, the early childhood sector and many approved providers have welcomed several recent government funding initiatives. However, missing from consideration in these discussions on how to successfully attract and retain more qualified teachers to our early childhood services is the current provision of quality pre-service placement experiences. 

 

For many pre-service teachers, their first sustained encounter with an early childhood service is on placement. These placements shape not only their practical skills, but their understanding of what teaching is in early childhood education. They learn, implicitly and explicitly, what counts as pedagogy, whose knowledge matters, and how the work of caring for young children is valued within an education setting.

 

Yet placement is also where some of the sector’s most entrenched tensions are visible. Pre-service teachers report witnessing rushed routines driven by ratios rather than relationships; pedagogical documentation reduced to compliance tasks; and moments of distress managed through efficiency rather than attunement. Students are seeing educators stretched thin, absorbing staffing shortages and operational pressures, while they are being told sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly that this is simply “how it is in early childhood.”

 

Equally troubling is the role pre-service teachers are often positioned to play in these spaces. Rather than being treated as learners with clear pedagogical goals, students describe being welcomed primarily as extra hands. In infant–toddler rooms especially, where physical care work is intensive and staffing pressures are acute, students are frequently asked to step in to cover breaks, supervise routines independently, or move between rooms to relieve shortages. While framed as “helping out,” these expectations blur legal, ethical, and pedagogical boundaries, and undermine the purpose of placement itself.

 

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: why do early childhood services take placement students?

 

For some, placements are genuinely understood as a professional responsibility, an investment in the future workforce and an opportunity for reflective practice. But for others, particularly in the current climate, students can be viewed as a temporary solution to chronic understaffing. When the motivation for hosting a pre-service teacher shifts, from mentorship to survival, the quality of the placement experience inevitably suffers, and so will our sector in the long-term.

 

For pre-service teachers this has lasting consequences. Many report leaving placements unsure whether what they observed reflected best practice or simply systemic strain. Others begin to question whether working with young children is intellectually valued, professionally supported, or sustainable as a long-term career. When students finish these placements feeling invisible, underprepared, or ethically compromised, it is unsurprising that many choose to leave the sector and avoid early childhood teaching entirely.

 

If we are serious about attracting and retaining a qualified early childhood workforce, we must take placements seriously. These environments are not entry-level spaces where students “start out” before real teaching begins. They are complex pedagogical contexts requiring deep knowledge of development, relationships, ethics, and curriculum. Pre-service teachers deserve to see this complexity made visible, named, and supported.

 

This means being honest about capacity. Not every service can host a student at every stage in the year, teachers take leave and priorities need to be balanced. But when services do accept a placement student, there must be a shared understanding that the role is pedagogical, not supplementary. Students are not there to plug workforce gaps; they are there to learn how to teach, care, and think with and alongside children.

 

The question, then, is not simply whether placements should continue, but how we collectively ensure they are experiences that inspire rather than deter. Early childhood placements, done well, have the potential to shape confident, reflective educators who understand the profound significance of early relationships. Done poorly, they risk teaching our newest educators that this work is undervalued, unsupported, and unsustainable.

 

If placement is truly an essential piece of the workforce puzzle, then the quality of what pre-service teachers see must become everyone’s concern.

 

For Approved Providers: Some structural questions before accepting placement students:

 

1. Are placements treated as workforce development, or workforce supplementation?
   If placements are embedded in staffing models to ease chronic shortages, students will inevitably be positioned as labour rather than learners. Approved providers must be able to demonstrate that placements are pedagogical commitments, not operational strategies.
2. Have we protected time and conditions for supervision?
   Supervision cannot occur in the margins. Are rosters, ratios, and non-contact time structured to allow supervising teachers to mentor, observe, and engage in reflective dialogue with students, especially in infant and toddler rooms where the work is relationally and physically demanding?
3. Do our policies clearly prohibit unsafe or unethical use of students?
   Clear organisational policy matters. Are there explicit directives that students are never left alone with children, never used to maintain ratios, and never moved across rooms for convenience? And are these policies actively monitored?
4. Are infant and toddler rooms recognised as pedagogically complex settings?
   In large organisations, decisions about placements are often made centrally. Do these decisions reflect an understanding that infant and toddler environments require high levels of expertise, stability, and relational continuity? Or are they treated as “entry-level” spaces suitable by default for students?
5. How are service leaders held accountable for placement quality?
   Quality placements do not happen by accident. Are centre leaders supported to create cultures where students are welcomed, oriented, and mentored? Do  they understand their legal and ethical responsibilities when hosting a placement student, in line with the NQF and AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers? Is feedback from placement students taken seriously and acted upon at an organisational level?
6. Are we transparent about why we accept placement students?
   Approved providers benefit reputationally, financially, and strategically from being “training organisations.” With that benefit comes responsibility. Being explicit about the purpose of placements and aligning practice with that purpose is an ethical obligation to both students and the profession.

 

Early childhood service providers shape the everyday realities that pre-service teachers come to understand as “normal.” When organisational systems prioritise occupancy, efficiency, and growth without equal investment in professional learning and supervision, our pre-service teachers learn a powerful lesson about what is valued in early childhood education and what is not.

 

If approved providers want to be seen as ethical leaders in the sector, then placement experiences must be treated as a serious professional undertaking, not an incidental by-product of operations. The future workforce is watching closely.

 

Authors

 

Karen Hope

 

Karen’s work sits at the intersection of teaching, academia, consultancy, and writing. She is interested in how pedagogy and the design of learning environments shape what becomes possible in practice, particularly in infant and toddler settings. Her work foregrounds curiosity, dialogue, and the often-overlooked democratic dimensions of everyday early childhood education.

 

Tanya Simpfendorfer

 

Tanya is a lecturer and researcher in the School of Education at ACU in Brisbane. She is currently completing her PhD at Macquarie University with her research focus on infant and toddler pedagogy. Tanya has a background in psychology and the early years. She has worked as a teacher, centre director, and early childhood consultant for state-based and national organisations for the past 25 years.