Supervising Group Activities As An Childcare Assistant

[aljc]

I'm a casual assistant educator at a childcare centre. Have worked there for approx 3 weeks, 3 days a week. Before that I was a student (still am). So my question is how many children should you be expected to have at one time during an outside group activity such as painting? And should you be expected to carry out the activity and also supervise yard?

[Lorina]

It really depends on the age group of the children. For example if you are in the toddler room, you can't have more than 8 toddlers by yourself, so if you were outside you shouldn't have more than 8... You won't be able to do 2 things at once since you will not be able to supervise properly. You either focus on the activity or you supervise the yard... During this time, there should 2 educators outside...

Hope this helps,

,
Lorina

[Lorina]

You can find the educator:child ratios here:

Educator:Child Ratios

,
Lorina

[Didi73]

Hi I'm in Victoria and here our ratio for under three's is 1:4. I think it differs for each state. 1:8 for under 3 would be tough with supervision, changing nappies, indoor/outdoor play. Good thing it changes for you soon.

[Lorina]

In NSW the toddler ratio is finally changing 1:5. I can't believe it's taken until 2016 for those to realise how hard it is to look after 8 toddlers under 3 with just 1 educator... Better late than never!

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Lorina