Aussie Childcare Network Forum

As my traineeship comes to an end my room leader is taking more of a back seat in preparation to go on maternity leave. This means that I'm making more decisions as to what we do in the room and running more of the routine e.g. deciding when we pack up, organizing transitions etc. It works out well because during the day my RL is there with me to help out and teach me, and then she leaves at 2 or 3pm and I have the afternoon to practice alone.

However most of the time when I'm 'running' the room alone (as in without my RL, usually there is another assistant with me) I don't feel like I can keep the environment calm. Children seem to be running around, yelling and climbing more frequently than with my RL there and I feel like I'm constantly saying hop down, inside voice, walking feet over and over, no matter how many times I discuss with the child/children what they're doing and redirect them to an activity. I feel like this is because the children know the RL is 'in charge' and that I'm assisting (or have just been assisting) and they feel like they don't need to listen to me or can get away with more when I'm there.

How can I change this? Over the next few weeks I really need to be keeping the room settled as there are many staff changes happening and I need to establish that the children need to listen to me and not just the RL. In a couple of months the RL will leave and there'll be two new staff, so I need to make sure things run smoothly.

Some more group activities have been helping as you said, LA. Only thing now is our new RL has started, the old RL hasn't been in the room much to guide us, and I think the children are getting unsettled all over again because of the staff change and 'pushing' a little to see what they can do with the new RL.

Its so frustrating because the new RL and myself are spending a lot of time trying to engage the children and we're quite behind on paperwork