Lili’s Early Learning has a duty of care to provide all persons with a safe and healthy environment.
Supervision is one of the most important care giving strategies and skills required by staff to develop and master. Active supervision is a combination of listening to and watching children play, being aware of the environment and its potential risks, the weather conditions, the time of day, managing small and large groups of children, and an understanding of child development including theories about how children play.
It is crucial that staff are aware of the different ages, personalities, behaviours and characteristics of the children in their care. How children interact, communicate and play with one another is dependent on staff building relationships with children to learn about who they are, how they react in certain situations and discover their interests. These are vital skills to develop as they assist staff to predict children’s play patterns, which affects how staff plan and establish environments and coordinate supervision strategies to maximize children’s safety and ability to play free from harm or injury.
The service’s Supervision Policy is committed to:
- Complying with Education and Child Care Services National Regulation 2012 adult / child ratios
- Ensuring children are supervised at all times
- Considering the design and arrangement of children’s environments to support active supervision
- Using supervision skills to reduce or prevent injury or incident to children and adults
- Guiding staff to make decisions about when children’s play needs to be interrupted and redirected
- Supporting staff and their care giving strategies
- Acknowledging and understanding when supervision is required for high risk experiences and / or the ratio of adults to children is increased to improve children’s safety
Staff to child ratios:
- The ratio of staff to children in the centre is:
- 0-3 yrs – 1 staff member for every four children, 1 qualified staff member.
- Over 3 yrs – 1 staff member for every 11 children, 1 qualified staff member.
- During both indoor and outdoor times, staff will position themselves to gain maximum sight and sound contact with all children and will be in sight of the play area being used at all times.
- Staff will remain alert and conscious of all children’s movements during the day and interact appropriately while maintaining a full awareness of each child’s movements.
- While outside, staff must position themselves close to “at risk” points around the outdoor area. These include climbing areas, sandpits and raised areas within the yard area. Staff must be positioned at the identified supervision points so that the whole play area is supervised. All areas must be supervised.
- Children are to be supervised while on a change table.
- All staff will be aware of how many children are in their care at all times.
Sourced: Education and Care Services National Regulation
NQF – effective Supervision
Policy reviewed August 2017
