NQS 4.1 Staffing Arrangements - Staffing arrangements enhance children's learning and development
4.1.1 Organisation of educators - the organisation of educators across the service supports children's learning and development.
4.1.2 Continuity of staff - every effort is made for children to experience continuity of educators at the service.
Family feedback - with our current roster and room ratio, often there is not a staff member from the room available to support drop off or pick ups in the afternoon. This makes parents feel understandably anxious about leaving their child with an unfamiliar educator, similarly the child and educator also feel stress through these interactions which can affect any relationships. In the afternoons families feel more relaxed and comfortable when there is a familiar staff member there to report on the child’s day.
Float feedback - our ‘float’ staff often get missed or feel like they’re not a part of our team because they aren’t in a room. They also aren’t able to regularly upgrade their skills
Sick leave- when educators are on annual leave or unwell we disrupt the room a lot and often by placing unfamiliar staff into the environment. This stresses regular room staff often as the children are not familiar with those staff and therefore always go to them for their needs.
We seek to create better outcomes for families, educators and children by ensuring continuity of staff.
How will we do this?
Review our roster to run every room one educator over ratio.
When will we do this by?
March 2025
How will we measure our success?
Educators feel included, supported and less stressed
Families are supported through drop off and pick up
Children receive quality care through continuity of staff
Observe in practice:
Rooms are over ratio and determine lunch breaks based on starting times
Children are supported throughout the day and build strong relationships with their educators
Families are supported at drop off and collection
Sight Documentation:
Rosters reflect extra educators in each room and how their times are spaced to ensure that there is an early and late educator on duty
Who is responsible?
Leadership
Roster Critical Reflection.pdfLeadership team conducted a critical reflection with perspectives from educators and families. There was a proposed idea by a previous educational leader to run every room one educator over ratio. With this thought in mind and all the feedback we had received, we explored this idea.
Evidence on left - For a larger view click the arrow symbol in the right hand corner
This is the proposed roster for the rooms in 2025. In the large coloured boxes is the amount of children enrolled for the day, then to the right lists the educators shifts. Our Manager has taken care to ensure that each room has an early, middle and late shift to ensure that an educator from the room is present for families in the afternoon. Any other support staff will support rooms that have educators on sick or annual leave.
Evidence on left - For a larger view click the arrow symbol in the right hand corner
Sample 2025 Roster.pdf2025 Room Reveal Video.mp4Room reveals
We held our room reveals for the 2025 year on Thursday the 21st of November. Educators bit into the cupcakes to reveal a colour. Educators with matching colours revealed the teams for the year. The Teams for the year are one educator over the legal requirement. The colours then also revealed the rooms.
Evidence - play video on left
Our goals for staff arrangements in 2025:
trial and reflect on the new roster and staffing arrangement throughout 2025