Larger Versus Smaller Room Size

[Lems]

Do people have any thoughts on having a larger group of kids to look after in a room versus a smaller group? The centre that I'm at has allocated spots for 20 children in each room. I work in the younger toddler room and presently our highest number is 18. Thankfully the kids play quite nicely, but the day is basically spent just pushing the kids through the routines. Nappy changes are done as quickly as possible without interaction and children using the toilet are not receiving guidance on what they need to do. It seems like a whole lot of bonding and learning opportunities are being missed so as to make sure everything happens on time. Does that seem backwards to anyone else? As educators and carers, isn't the allowance of time important for helping children to feel as though they belong and for helping them to learn life skills?

Perhaps it would be different if it was a mixed ages room? I think the hugely tricky part is that they're all around the same age, learning the same kinds of things, and there doesn't seem to be enough time to cater for all of their needs.

We also have the issue of when there's a new child, the large number of children in the room makes it difficult to focus on the new child if they're upset. And it seems terrible to have to allow an obviously distressed child to continue their crying whilst sorting the other children out...

[Lorina]

Since the new ratios have been in place at the beginning of the year, it should enable you to work closely with all children and support you to provide high quality care for the children in your room. You mentioned you have 18 kids so how many staff do you have in the room? In regards, to the routine it's there as a guide, it should be flexible and doesn't have to be necessarily followed. It seems like you're all working as robots just doing what needs to be done. It needs to be more than this, especially with the younger ones. It's such an important stage in their life that you need to take this opportunity to really connect with each of them and inspire them to learn. They are like sponges at this stage and you have a great opportunity to feed them learning which they can soak up. During nappy changing, during toileting these are all different possibilities of learning and you should really take this time to support children in their learning.

Follow their interests, find out what they want to do, get them to choose how the day should go. Get messy and have fun! It has to be more than doing the same thing day in and day out...

Hope this helps,

,
Lorina

[Lems]

Yep. I totally agree. I’m all for using every routine as a learning experience. Am thus finding it hard to adapt to the expectations of the centre that I’m at. My room leader wants nappies/toileting done in 30-45 minutes, but it takes me at least an hour to get through them all as I don’t like rushing through and not interacting with the children or showing them how to use the toilet, pull their pants up and down, and wash and dry their hands. I make sure to not take an inordinate amount of time with each child – the timeframe desired just doesn’t seem to be enough.

We have our meals come at certain times, so there doesn’t seem to be much flexibility with the routines… That’s why I was wondering whether a smaller number of children or mixed ages room would work better. We have 4 educators, so we’re within ratio, but it doesn’t seem to help… Is it usually only one educator who does all the nappies/toileting each time they need to be done, or do some centres have a couple of educators doing them at the same time? That would probably help with staying on time and not having to rush through the children. Or maybe if we started the toileting/nappies a bit earlier.

I'm wondering whether it would also work better if each educator had a group of children to look after - did their nappies/toileting, looked after them during meal times, sorted them out for sleep/rest. We have focus children, but it's just for the observation side of things. Jobs are done by single staff members - one person does the nappies/toileting, one person serves the food whilst another sits with the children and another sets the beds up, a couple of educators pat the children to sleep whilst another cleans up after lunch and mops the floor. Is this the usual/optimal way of doing things?

[Lorina]

When working with toddlers and having a large group of children in the room I find that typically educators do the same as per what you're doing. One educator to do the nappies, another to set up beds, another to serve food etc. It gets a bit much with nappies and toileting especially if you have so many to do all by yourself. It takes time. You cant hurry a child up on the toilet because you have to do them in a certain amount of time. The more you seem to hurry the slower a child seems to go. LOL. With nappies you could split them up so if you have 14 to do. You could do 7 and then split up the rest with another educator. Having 2 staff to do them at a time is probably more desirable if ratios are covered and if the nappy change room is large enough.

Regarding splitting the children amongst the educators within the room, that's a good idea. Each educator is responsible for their "group" of children. You could try it and see what happens. All about trial and error until you find what works best for your room.

Hope this helps,

,
Lorina