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Educational leadership and service supervision - Staffing requirements - Long day care and kindergarten services

Handout materials

The following materials were provided to attendees during the October - November National Quality Framework information sessions. They have been uploaded as an online resource for services wishing to workshop these concepts internally.

Service supervision

The Education and Care Services National Law requires that providers must have a responsible person present at the service at all times. A responsible person could be:

the Approved Provider-if the Approved Provider is an individual-in any other case, a person with management or control of the service
the Nominated Supervisor of the service
a Certified Supervisor who has been placed in day to day charge of the service.

A Nominated Supervisor is a Certified Supervisor who has agreed to oversee the day to day operation of a service.

All staff members or nominees under the Child Care Act 2002 engaged as qualified centre directors, group leaders or coordinators were declared as both a Certified and Nominated Supervisor on 1 January 2012. This also includes someone who is working towards the qualification and is taken to be qualified under the Act.

The Approved Provider must confirm the Nominated Supervisor in writing and the person must consent to their nomination.

Educational leadership

Each service must appoint an educational leader from 1 January 2012 to lead the development and implementation of educational programs. This individual must be a suitably qualified and experienced educator.

This is separate to the teacher requirement - services may appoint their teacher as educational leader, but they may opt to appoint another educator as educational leader. For example, a service may choose their director who holds an Advanced Diploma, has many years of experience, is very knowledgeable and skilled and has the ability to be the educational leader.

Qualification and ratio requirements from 2012

All educators must hold (or be studying towards) a minimum Certificate III qualification
One in every two educators must hold (or be studying towards) a Diploma qualification or above
From 2014, services will require an early childhood teacher.

Centre-based ratios from 2012 to 2020
2012 � 2015	Ratio	2016 � 2017	Ratio	1 JAN 2018+	Ratio
0-24 mths	1:4	0-24 mths	1:4	0-24 mths	1:4
15-24 mths*	1:5	15-24 mths*	1:5	0-24 mths	1:4
>24-35 mths	1:6	>24-35 mths	1:5	>24-35 mths	1:5
>30-35 mths	1:8	>24-35 mths	1:5	>24-35 mths	1:5
36 mths <7 yrs	1:12	36 mths <school age	1:11	36 mths <school age	1:11
4 yrs <7 yrs	1:13			School age**	1:15
4 yrs <14 yrs	1:12
School age**	1:15	School age**	1:15

*Eligible services need to apply to continue using 1:5 ratio from 2012 until 2018.
**Means a child enrolled in schooling (Prep onwards) and attending anytime the same calendar year.

Discussion:

A volunteer from the group will outline the current staffing profile of their service.

Drawing on this staffing profile, workshop as a group who could be the Nominated and Certified Supervisors and educational leader from 1 January 2012, and how you would nominate these positions with the National Quality Standard in mind.

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This page was last reviewed on 03 Jan 2012 at 05:54PM