Dragged, kicking and screaming
In light of resent advents, the Early Childhood Education and Care sector is changing. Most centres have now introduced a two educators in a space at all times policy, sounds great right? It’s better, it prevents a lot of issues that I’ve addressed on this platform previously but it dose have its logistical issues.
Problems like what happens when the ratio only requires two educators a space. There is currently no requirement to staff beyond ratio, that is assign extra staff to a group of children. So what happens when a staff member needs to go to the toilet when there’s only 2 staff in the room. What if a child has been sick over a rug, someone has to clean the child up, someone else has to clean up the room and the manager can’t always come out form the office.
Most educators work upwards of 7.5 hours a day, across that shift your employer must give you two, ten minute breaks and 1 lunch break 30 minutes or longer although most employers give you an hour lunch. What happens when a centre who has some sort of two staff a space at all times policy don’t have the staffing to ensure there breaks are actually covered. It also still permits under the roof ratios so that centres can keep staffing expenses low. I’ll give credit where it's due. It makes it harder for serous misconduct to go unwitnessed however is the cost in losses to non-contact time worth it, I’m less sure. Most educators agree that what really needs to happen is for an extra person beyond what the ratio called for to be rostered into a space at all times. If a room requires 2 staff that day there should be three staff to cover it and so on. This extra person is beyond inclusion support too, a child who needs extra help should not have the educator there to support them supporting other children.
Serous misconduct is always going to occur, there are always going to be people who slip though the gaps, you can’t stop crime. As for suggestions that a permeant mark against your bluecard should occur upon allegations leveraged prior to the investigation should be shelved. There is no other profession where your career is ended over one unproven claim. Just imagine what would happen if this was a politician?
I want to take this post to point out a new tool to look at when trying to find a centre. The union who looks after educators have a new website called Earlyed quality check where educators anonymously post reviews of the centre that they work at. Its a way to see what is going on whilst your not there from the perspective of the staff who work there. 77% of educators report centre understaffing on a weekly basses so it provides a look at how regally that occurs at your centre. The union is also investigating how to use current advents to try to increase ratio but this could take a while.
Either way I going to make the same 2 points I’ve made before. Prevention over cure and the best way for you to prevent this from happening to your child is to teach consent in an age appropriate way. There are books available online and straggles you can use to reinforce the message. If they say no, It is to be respected within reason and anything else is unacceptable and should be communicated. Choose your centre carefully look at the rating that the’ve achieved on the Startingblocks website, read google reviews, look at what educators have to say about the centre on Earlyed quality check. Again, I feel sorry for the families involved, the educators that are being unfairly vilified and the consequences that the actions of a few have on the sector as a whole. The core job of an educator is to insure that your child plays safely, learns something and goes home unharmed every afternoon. Each child deserves safety and each parent or caregiver deserves the the right to go to work as guilt free as humanly posable. As a sector, we need to work on that because otherwise stuff like this will continue to happen. So lets all join the fight, demand better and demand change within the profession.
Last but not least activity of the week:
Keeping with last weeks theme we’re going to do a science experiment. This time we’re going to change the colure of flowers.
You will need
8 white flowers
Red, yellow, blue and green food colouring
4 tall slim containers
Water
Trim your flowers to match the length of your containers. Half fill your containers with water and add one colure of dye to each. Make your coloured water fairly pigmented. Add your white flowers (I’d use 2 flowers per container) and leave in a space that they can’t reach but can see. Over a few days the flowers will change form white to what ever colure you’ve dyed your water.