“It’s our polite nudge in the ribs to help you and your team stay organised and on task.”
This week’s subject is the Educator Handbook.
Element 4.2.2: Professional standards guide practice, interactions and relationships.
Have you recently reviewed your Educator Handbook to ensure it reflects current practice, Service goals, and culture? Have you updated the educator handbook to include updates about the approved learning frameworks? In addition to the review of your Service policies and procedures, your Educator Handbook should be reviewed regularly to ensure that it reflects any updates made to policies, procedures, philosophy, routines, practices and regulatory updates.
A comprehensive, well-written educator handbook is a crucial component of an effective staff induction process, ensuring consistency with the distribution and orientation of policies, procedures, staff code of conduct, Service expectations and all relevant information.
The handbook is a ‘one-stop shop’ for educators to be able to access all relevant policies/procedures and information to assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities to the best of their ability. Educators should retain a copy for their records, to allow them to refer to, to assist and guide them in their practice.
Ensure that you allocate time for new educators to review the handbook and sign to acknowledge that they have read and understood its contents. It’s recommended that Services also ensure that all existing employees are provided with the current/updated version of the educator handbook. When updating the handbook, consider highlighting changes to bring to the attention of staff and have them sign the agreement to acknowledge that they have read and understand the information included in the updated handbook. Maintain a copy of this acknowledgement in their staff file. This method will prove effective in ensuring the information contained in the handbook is “top of mind” therefore improving everyday practice and driving continual improvement.
Information to include in your educator handbook:
-
- Service introduction and information
- Service management structure
- Daily/session routine/s
- Service philosophy and goals
- Information on the National Quality Framework: NQS, Education and Care Services National: Law and Regulations
- Approved learning frameworks; Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF)V2.0, My Time, Our Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia (FSAC)V2.0, Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF)
- Confidentiality
- Code of conduct/ ECA Code of ethics
- Position descriptions (if not provided separately)
- Staff responsibilities and expectations regarding; professional development, appraisals, determining the responsible person, staff meetings, dress codes and grooming, staff roster, timesheets, procedure for calling in sick, personal mobile phones and compliance
- Employment conditions, staff wages and payroll procedure
- Information about programming and the cycle of planning
- Information about, copies of or access to relevant policies/procedures including:
- child protection and child-safe environment policies
- anti-bias policy
- delivery and collection of children policy
- refusal of authorisations policy/procedure
- medication authorisation and administration
- incident, injury, illness, trauma policy
- staff code of conduct
- social media policy
- staff immunisation policy
- smoke/vape-free environment
- alcohol and illegal substances
- first aid policy
- asthma and anaphylaxis management
- supervision policy and information on effective supervision
- sun smart policy
- nutrition and food safety
- privacy and confidentiality
- student and volunteers
- work, health and safety
- behaviour guidance policy
- emergency procedures
- working with children and police checks
- grievance procedures
Code of Conduct:
-
- The Code of Conduct must be reviewed by new employees during induction and orientation to the Service
- Every twelve months, ensure all employees within the service provide a written declaration that they have read and understand the principles of the Code and agree to comply and implement this document
- Written declarations should be kept within each staff member’s individual file/folder
- Staff should be made aware of any potential disciplinary action that may result, in failure to comply with the Code of Conduct- ranging from a first warning to the termination of employment and /or legal proceedings
- Promote regular debate, discussion and opportunities for educators and staff to engage with the guiding principles underpinning the Code of Conduct
Resources:
Staff Handbook- Resource sheet
NQF eLearning modules: for educators new to the children’s education and care sector and existing staff, to support their understanding of their roles within the sector.
Approved Learning Frameworks: “What’s changed?” Fact sheet: EYLF V2.0, MTOP V2.0
Approved Learning Frameworks- Overview of changes-online video
Mapping the updated EYLF to V9 Australian Curriculum
Mapping the updated MTOP to V9 Australian Curriculum. Example connections
Within System7 go to Quality Area 4/Module 12 to submit self-assessment notes and if required, open a QIP issue if you identify any areas of improvement.
The Childcare Centre Desktop has a range of resources to assist services with professional standards. These include a Staff Handbook Template, Position Descriptions, Student and Volunteer Handbook, New Employee Induction Checklist, Code of Conduct Policy and much more.
Resources, NQS Element, Regulation and System7 links:
Childcare Centre Desktop – Childcare Centre Desktop
National Quality Standard – QA 4/ 4.2.2- Professional standards
National Regulations – 168
System7 Module – QA 4/Module 12
If you have any questions send us a note via the Contact page here!
