Educators get paid to…
Meet the physical and emotional needs of the children that they care for and ensure a safe environment for children to play free of risk from harm, hygienic and athletically pleasing. We are paid to find age appropriate actives for children to engage in and teach them to function in the world that they live in. We are paid to share the wealth of knowledge we gain from spending our lives caring for other peoples children, our own children, studying childcare and early childhood development with our paying parents. We are paid to cater to the ‘reasonable’ requests of the parents of the children we care for, catering to the needs of each child separately and assist the parents in what ever way we can during work hours.
Sometimes you run into a child at a supermarket and its polite to say hi, have a chat if your in the position to do so, and that’s ok. It’s an expected occurrence when you live and work in a similar area. Some parents will freak out if you don’t acknowledge your relationship, after all, you care for the centre of their world. I enjoy running into the children I work with after hours, until it becomes the only conversation I can have with them. The issue lies when these interactions are no longer a choice.
Most childcare companies expect a lot more from educators than what they pay educators to do. The children’s Christmas parties, easter gatherings, kindy grads, sometimes even staff meetings are unpaid. If an advent is hosted by the centre after hours, chances are educators assisting are not being paid to be there. Most sectors would riot, yet employers expect educators to attend, work it, put in a solid shift and not complain. Most staff who are ‘dedicated’ to the centre will do so, unpaid, managers will guilt trip staff into attending these unpaid events. The classic ‘but I booked you first’ in reference to an email with the date berried somewhere months earlier is always a ‘good’ guilt trip used to convince you to give up your personal time.
Educators are expected to read updated policies, procedures, job disruptions, any and all documents that relate to your employment in our personal time. There is often no allowance made for the time educators spend reading these documents within our entitlement. There is no penalty within our award for hours spent reading operational procedure outside of our standard hours. Room lead are allowed 2 hours of programming time a week under our award. That’s 2 hours to document, find and plan actives per the planing cycle I’ve previously discussed, a task that when done on mass like this will typically take 4 or 5, when does the rest of the programming get done, at home in our personal time, unpaid.
Part of an educators compensation is leave. Under ratio laws all centres must have enough staff to cover the children present, plus extra for lunch cover. As such staff can only take time off when another staff member can cover them. Typically annual, personal and long service leave is rolled over, if left unused at the end of a year, you will be able to use it next year. However if a part of your pay packet includes a leave type that doesn’t roll over, you may be unable to use it before you lose it. Most companies will not compensate you for unused, expired leave even when your employer have not given you the chance to take it.
Moral of the story, educators are only paid for the hours that they are rostered on when they are on the floor and whatever non-contact hours they are owed under the award. Everything else is unpaid, given most educators make $30/hour or less, no wonder we’re burnt out. I wonder if any teachers feel the same pinch.
Activity of the week,
Its moving into summer here in Australia, the time of year when we bust out the sunscreen and sip on chilled drinks. Children often like playing out in the sun and despise being told to put sunscreen on so I like showing them how it works.
You will need:
Black paper
SPF 50 sunscreen
Fold your pice of black paper in half, liberally apply sunscreen on one side of the paper and wait 20 minutes per the instructions on the pack. Place your paper outside in a sunny spot and return in a few hours. The side of the paper that didn’t have the sunscreen should become discoloured.