“It’s our polite nudge in the ribs to help you and your team stay organised and on task.”
This week’s subject is Organisation of Educators
Element 4.1.1: The organisation of educators across the service supports children’s learning and development.
How does your service strategically organise educators and plan rosters to support children’s learning, development and foster their sense of belonging?
The organisation of educators across a service is a key factor in supporting all children to have opportunities to engage in meaningful learning and interactions with educators with whom they are familiar and comfortable. Carefully planned rosters support educators to be available and responsive to children, and support quality experiences and adequate supervision at all times when children are attending the service. Guide to the NQF
Ensuring that your rosters are planned to foster continuity of care, adequate staff-child ratios and sufficient qualified staff, will support educators to be responsive, purposeful and reflective in their practice and allow them to better direct their full attention to educating and caring for children.
Ensure you maintain a record of educators working directly with children at all times children are being educated and cared for. Ensure that the documentation includes the name, signature and the times that each educator worked directly with children. A staff roster is not a sufficient record of adequate supervision as it does not take into account any adjustments made during the day.
Have you updated your record keeping practices for the replacement of educators and ECTs to ensure they meet new requirements detailed in r152A and 152B?
Services are now required to keep a record of when:
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- an educator who holds (or is actively working towards) an approved certificate III or diploma level qualification is replaced by a person who holds a primary teaching qualification
- an ECT or Suitably Qualified Person (SQP) is absent because of short-term illness, leave, resignation or because they are attending supervised professional experience placements for an approved qualification, and replaced by a person who holds an approved diploma level or primary teaching qualification (r135 and r272 in NSW).
The record must include:
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- the name of the person being replaced
- the role being replaced (ECT, diploma, cert III, or SQP)
- the qualification of the person replacing the role
- the date/s of replacement
- the reason for the absence; must be either, short-term illness, leave, resignation or attendance at a supervised professional experience placement for an approved qualification.
Keeping a record of when educators and ECTs are replaced will assist service’s in keeping track of the total number of days for which each role is replaced, to ensure the maximum is not exceeded:
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- 30 days for certificate III and diploma level educators (within a 12-month period)
- 60 days for ECTs or SQPs. Further information.
Resources:
Quality Area 4: Staffing Arrangements
Qualifications Lead to Quality
Short term relief of educators at Centre-based Services
Educators Who are “Actively Working Towards” a Qualification
Attracting and retaining staff
Within System7 go to Quality Area 4/ Modules 1 & 2 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 staffing arrangements. These include Responsible Person Policy, Recruitment Policy, Recruitment Plan, Record of “Actively Working Towards” Qualification, Record of Short-Term Relief, Record of Access to an ECT, Responsible Person Register, Roster Template/Sample, Working Directly with Children Guide, Direct Supervision Sign In/Out Sheet and much more.
Resources, NQS Element, Regulation and System7 links:
Childcare Centre Desktop – Childcare Centre Desktop
National Quality Standard – QA 4/ 4.1.1- Organisation of educators
National Regulations – Part 4.4 Staffing arrangements, 168, 239, 239A, 240, 241, 242, 243, 243A, 244, 260, 261, 262, 271, 272
System7 Module – QA4/Modules 1 & 2
If you have any questions send us a note via the Contact page here!
