Early Childhood Australia (ECA) is providing a targeted response to the exposure draft of the national education and care regulations. Each ECA Branch has made a response and together these provide a rich and comprehensive response to the draft regulations. Nationally it has been decided to respond primarily to the issue that has been at the heart of ECA’s strong advocacy for the implementation of this National Quality Framework which is the requirements for early childhood teachers in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services

Division 5—Requirements for early childhood teachers

145 Requirement for early childhood teacher—centre-based services fewer than 25 children (1)

ECA understands that the cost of providing a teacher full time for children in small centre based services would be too expensive for families using these services. ECA also recognises the effort made in the draft regulations to find a way through which provides pedagogical leadership and support to such services at a reasonable cost. Notwithstanding this ECA believes that definition of a small service as one with fewer than 25 children in attendance sets the cut-off point for providing access to a teacher for the equivalent of 6 hours per week at too high a number of children. ECA believes that this number should be reduced to 20 children.

ECA recommends that a review of the effectiveness of this provision be undertaken in three (3) years of it becoming operational. This review would provide an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of approaching the requirement for a teacher in this way. It will also provide an opportunity to document the most effective ways of delivering on this requirement. Clearly this would only be possible if evaluation strategies were in place at the beginning of the implementation of this policy.

146 Requirement for early childhood teacher—centre-based services 25–59 children

In summary the exposure draft of the national regulations requires that services with 25–59 children have an early childhood teacher in attendance:

1. For at least 6 hours on that day if the services operates for 50 or more hours a week: or
2. For 60 per cent of the operating hours of the service on that day, if the service operates for less than 50 hours per week.

In contrast, the Communique issued following the Council of Australian Governments Meeting of 7 December 2009 specifies a more demanding requirement for early childhood teachers. Attachment A titled National Quality Agenda for Early Childhood Education and Care says at page 2 that

Most services will be required to have an early childhood teacher in attendance whenever a service is being provided, with smaller centres required to have a teacher for some of the time. Requirements for a second teacher will apply in larger services from 2020.

ECA’s focus here is on the words whenever a service is being provided. These words represent a much more demanding requirement for an early childhood teacher than that which is specified in the exposure draft of the national regulations.

ECA would like to step back from both the Communiqué’s and the exposure draft’s approach to the requirement for a teacher and look again at what is necessary to enable a teacher to fully realise their role whether they are working in a preschool or in a long day care centre and find a way through that is more reflective of this role.

In both settings the role of the teacher includes the implementation of the program with the children and leadership responsibility for its quality. This includes the responsibility for the learning environment and the interactions with children and the observations, documentation, review and planning for children’s learning on which the program is based. As well this, building a strong relationship with families is intrinsic to a quality program for children and there are also the daily and time consuming processes of setting up and preparation for day. In addition, in long day care services a core role of the early childhood teacher is the mentoring and support of lesser qualified staff. This is also true in preschools but to a lesser extent.

Services, including preschools and long day care centres take different approaches to making provision for these roles but what is clear is that to do them well requires time when the teacher is neither engaged with children nor responsible for their supervision.

Following from this it is clear that the new regulations need to recognise the full extent of the role of the early childhood teacher. ECA believes that it not possible for a teacher to exercise the full extent of their professional role in the 6 hours per day or 60% of opening hours that is currently specified in this section of the draft regulations.

There is a myth that early childhood teachers working in preschools work only from 9am–3pm. What is not taken into account is the invisible time these teachers spend in planning and programming, setting up and putting away at the end of the day and managing transitions between families, children and the service at the beginning and end of the day and the ongoing interactions with families which are a core element of these programs. ECA believes the new national regulations should take fully into account the role expectations of teachers working in these settings including the fact that preschool teachers do work significantly longer than 6 hours per day. Clearly the final regulation will need to take account of Preschool teacher industrial awards. The new national regulation is an opportunity to clarify and provide for the role of qualified teachers in ECEC services.

ECA is also concerned that the proposed early childhood teacher requirement in the current draft fails to acknowledge that the standard shift for educators, including teachers, in long day care centres is 7.5 hours. Teachers in long day care centres in NSW work a standard shift. ECA understands that this will be grandfathered in the new regulations but believes that this expectation should be inherent in the new regulations and apply to all centres of this size. If this is not the case there is the very real potential to create divisions in services as teachers earning more money will work fewer hours than other educators.

The other potential consequence of the way the requirement for early childhood teacher is specified in the draft regulations is that depending on what services prioritise, teachers would find it difficult to engage with families as many/most drop children off before 9am and collect them after 3pm. Within long day care it is essential that the early childhood teacher is available to families at the beginning and the end of the day. These are the peak time for interactions with families, sharing information to support the partnership and building and maintaining relationships. For working families these times are not at 9am and 3pm. What is proposed in the draft national regulations would seem to be in conflict with the requirements of the National Quality Standard in relation to building relationships with parents and the community.

To leave the draft requirement as it is also entrenches the notion that teaching occurs only between 9am -3pm which are the standard hours for double session preschools. ECA is aware that the regulations do not specify which six hours but it is clear that the model on which this requirement is based is the perception of the standard preschool model.

Clearly there are problems with December 7, 2009 COAG meeting Communiqué’s requirement that a teacher be in a service whenever it is operating. To do this in a long day care centre would mean the employment of more than one teacher in each service. Although ECA would support such an interpretation of the Communique we do acknowledge that this is unrealistic at this stage.

ECA’s position is that the new national regulations should require a teacher to be employed for a full shift as defined by the service type in which they are working. This approach allows for the different operating hours of long day care centres and preschools but acknowledges that teaching is more than just the face to face interactions with children and allows for the time to plan and do other professional work associated with the provision of high quality education and care programs. In long day care centres this will mean making provision in the budget for the time off task that teachers will need to do this work.

In regard to number 147 which refers services with 60 and not more than 80 children on a given day ECA believes that a second teacher should be in attendance for a full shift particularly if one of these people is to be the pedagogical leader and mentor to the other staff.

Finally ECA notes that both the Communique and the draft regulations require that the teacher is in attendance rather than working directly with children. This does not alter any of our comments other than that the term in attendance implies some leadership role.

ECA recommends this same approach for services for 60 or more children.

Other matters

Part 5 Assessment and Ratings—Division 1 Prescribed rating levels

56 Foundation Rating

ECA is aware is that there has been some concern expressed about the label “Foundation” and that alterative labels such as Progressing toward the National Quality Standard or Transitioning to the National Quality Standard have been proposed. ECA believes that there is no good reason why the standards must be described in one word labels. The test of the label must be that it conveys exactly what the rating means. For this reason ECA supports a changes of the kind suggested to the Foundation label.

58 High Quality Rating

The High Quality label is also one which is less clear than it might be given that the national quality standard is aspirational. The arguments made previously that the label should convey exactly what it means suggest that the High Quality Rating label would be clearer if it was Above the National Quality Standard Rating.

58 (2)

This section says that to achieve a high quality rating a service must provide a preschool program or facilitate access to a preschool program. ECA believes the concept of preschool program encompassed in 58(2) must not be restricted to the traditional sessional program whether it be implemented in a long day care centre or a free standing preschool. It is crucial that in 58(2) the concept of preschool encompasses a range of delivery models including the delivery of a preschool program led by an early childhood teacher which takes place across the long day in long day care centre. The evidence from the Report Effective Provision of Preschool Education* ,a longitudinal, population wide study, supports this model. That study found that the best outcomes for children are achieved in programs provided across the long day and which integrate care and education, are lead by a qualified early childhood teacher and where children attend for 2 to 3 years. This model is strongly demonstrated in long day care services where a teacher leads the program and is employed across the long day.

ECA understands that the drivers for the ’60 hour’ view are in the attempts in the different jurisdictions to achieve the ‘integration’ of education and care. Some jurisdictions resolve this by providing degree qualified early childhood teachers in long day ECEC centres, and giving them parity of remuneration and conditions with EC teachers in other settings, so that they attend the long day service for shorter days, with the lesser qualified staff covering the other hours. While we applaud the intent behind this we believe that the long term national goal should be to find a solution that reflects the EPPE findings, and indeed the lengthy experience in New South Wales.

ECA recommends that the regulations be changed to make clear that the preschool program can be delivered in a range of settings which encompass both long day and sessional programs.

*Siraj-Blatchford, I., Sylva, K., Taggart, B., Sammons, P. & Melhuish, E. (2003). Effective Provision of Preschool Education Report. London: Institute of Education, University of London/Department for Education and Employment.

82 Record of child assessments for delivery of education programs

82(a) (i)

ECA recommends that the wording assessment of the child’s developmental needs, interests, and experiences be replaced by the words an assessment for the child’s development. The existing words imply a deficit view of children whereas the proposed replacement words reflect a more strengths based approach and supports the view of assessment for the purposes of supporting a child’s learning and development.

Staff requirements at beginning and end of day

The draft regulations specify that only one staff member is required at the beginning and end of the day.

This is unacceptable in any circumstances, for the well being and protection of both children and staff. Difficulties include:

• The coming and going of adults and children and the need for information sharing among parents and educators at these times makes it virtually impossible for a single person to maintain adequate supervision of children.
• Similarly if there is an accident at this time and the person on duty is required to manage it then this leaves the other children unsupervised.
• A sole person on duty can be the subject of false accusations of inappropriate behaviour with no witnesses to verify their statement. Similarly they can be threatened and have no support to manage the situation. Incidents of this kind are not rare.

The safety and security of both children and staff must be a priority—a single educator model at the beginning and end of the day leaves both vulnerable.