Rest/Pause Times

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Kelly91
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Rest/Pause Times

Post by Kelly91 » Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:46 am

Hello
I have worked with the same privately owned center now for over 5 years as an early childhood teacher. I do enjoy working with the company i'm with but one of my concerns is rest/pause time strategies and how to make it less challenging. I think the regulations for ratios within a Kindy aged room is changing next year, but even then I still have another year or more of trying to cope on my own (or other educator on her own) with almost all my children not sleeping
since they are growing out of it. It frustrates me that one educator is expected to be in a room on his/her own with 22 children awake. This is the most challenging time of the day and it's purely because for two hours we have all this weight on our shoulders to look after children, find time to finish off the day program, reflective journal, clean and assist or comfort children who do sleep etc. Sometimes we have float staff come in to help but this is not always available. I understand why two educators are needed in say the toddler room, but what doesn't really make sense is that they are toddlers.......they are going to sleep because they need it. So two educators are peacefully getting everything done with a room full of sleeping toddlers, yet here I am with 22 awake children on my own.
We always make it work but just seeing if anyone has any strategies that we may not have tried? I've been taking 15 minutes off my lunch break each day just to help my co worker assist the sleeping kids as I feel horrible leaving her on her own with a room full of awake kids. If you have kids of your own and you sometimes feel smothered or challenged.....can you imagine being alone with up to 22 of them? Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
Kelly


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Lorina
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Re: Rest/Pause Times

Post by Lorina » Tue Jun 07, 2016 6:17 pm

Hi Kelly,

It's completely unfair for one educator to supervise 22 waking children alone! I have been in the same situation as you many times and it's not fair and for most part you're watching the clock ticking counting down when the other educator is going to come back!

Since the children are awake in your room, you are required to meet ratio requirements. As for the toddler room, since the children are all sleeping educator ratio can drop down to only 1, therefore leaving 1 staff extra to be able to come and assist you to supervise the children.

Instead of having just one of you, by having an educator from the toddler room to assist you, you will be meeting requirments.

Even though the toddler educator is not a permenant staff in your room, we all need to provide support to each other and I'm sure helping in your room during lunch breaks isn't going to cause an issue. At least it gives you time to get work done etc.

I also found this information:

Breaks

The National Regulations require the educator to child ratio to be maintained at all times.
However, it is recognised that backfilling educators in Centre-based services while they are on
short breaks is difficult. The approach of Regulatory Authorities will be to allow each educator
to take up to 30 minutes off the floor per day without being backfilled—for example, for
personal hygiene, meal breaks or to take personal phone calls—without the service being in
breach of prescribed ratio requirements. At all times the overarching consideration must be the
needs of the children and adequate supervision must be maintained at all times.

For example, this provision might be used to provide educators with two 15 minute tea breaks
without backfilling their position, or one 30-minute lunch break, where adequate supervision can
be maintained. This provision is not intended to result in situations where accommodating the
needs of the children is compromised. For example, children should not be required to rest for an
unreasonable length of time to accommodate educators’ breaks.


Hope this helps,

:geek:,
Lorina

Kelly91
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Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2016 1:28 am

Re: Rest/Pause Times

Post by Kelly91 » Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:38 pm

Thanks heaps Lorina this was helpful. Ill be showing my director this week. The sad thing is though that she most likely already knows this and being such a small center that I work at, she is on floor or 'float' everyday yet she hasnt ever once offeres to help. Also, it frustrates me that the other educators in other rooms know how hard it can be at rest time yet they never offer to come help.
We had a staff meeting about one month ago which focused at one point on helping each other out and being a team, our room at rest time was used as an example yet since then no one has offered help once. Either way we have been asking for help but its just a shame that the majority of people wouldnt offer simply because they dont want to. I hope to become a director one day soon and one thing ill be tackling is team work and understanding every room rather than what educators are use to.

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Lorina
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Re: Rest/Pause Times

Post by Lorina » Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:00 pm

I think your absolutely right! The team should work together and help one another regardless of what room they're in! At one of my previous centres I really appreciate the team work within all the educators. If any of us needed help throughout the day we would just call over to someone from the other room and always offered to help each other. We even asked the chef (with a cert 3 qualification as well) to jump in at times and they were happy to do so. Our director ensured that we had a taste of each room to help each other out. Something I really appreciated and it was nice to cover lunch because we get to spend time in other rooms...

Hope you're able to sort this out!

:geek:,
Lorina

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