CONTENTSOn this page
- Person responsible qualifications and registration
- Minimum adult-to-child ratios
- Number of qualified people your service needs
- Number of people with first aid qualifications required
- Job descriptions
- Code of conduct
- Staffing schedules
- Developing a schedule
- Pay equity and pay parity
- Employing teachers for your service
- Evidence of staffing when you apply for your licence
- Help with employment issues
Make sure you have the right number of staff, with the right qualifications, to look after the number of children you plan to have at your services.
Person responsible qualifications and registration#
Staff in the position of ‘person responsible’ are required to be appropriately qualified. They must:
- be a registered teacher
- have a current practising certificate
- have a first aid qualification.
See more information about the person responsible role.
Qualification requirements and the person responsible role
See the relevant regulations.
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, Schedule 1 – New Zealand Legislation
Minimum adult-to-child ratios#
The Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 (schedule 2) sets out how many children can attend with certain numbers of adults (adult-to-child ratio).
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, schedule 2 – New Zealand Legislation
The adult-to-child ratio must be maintained at all times.
See more information about adult-to-child ratios.
Number of qualified people your service needs#
Having a certain number of qualified staff helps you provide a quality service.
Schedule 1 of the Education (Registration of Early Childhood Services Teachers) Regulations 2004 requires at least 50% of the required staff to have a recognised early learning teaching qualification.
Newly graduated provisionally certificated teachers must be supervised and supported through an advice and guidance programme once they begin teaching in an early childhood service.
Number of people with first aid qualifications required#
There must be at least 1 staff member for every 25 children at the centre who:
- holds a current first aid certificate
- is a registered medical practitioner, nurse or midwife with a current practising certificate, or
- is a qualified ambulance officer or paramedic.
First aid ratios in an emergency #
When an adult who hold a first aid qualification needs to take a child to a medical professional or accompany the child in an ambulance, you can relax the first aid ratio. You can have 1 first aid qualified adult to 50 children until the adult has had a reasonable amount of time to return to the service.
See the first aid qualifications licensing criterion.
Job descriptions#
Job descriptions are written to clearly identify the roles and responsibilities of a specific job.
They help to:
- clarify the role and expectations of employees
- decide how work is allocated or delegated
- develop appraisal processes and procedures
- set goals
- identify professional development needs and guide career developments.
The best job descriptions allow employees to use their experience, grow their skills and develop their ability to contribute within their organisation.
A job description should include:
- a position title
- an introduction to the organisation
- an introduction to the role
- primary responsibilities, including intended outcomes of key tasks
- duties and key tasks
- qualifications and experience required for the position
- personal professional qualities and skills
- who the person in the role reports to and relationships with other staff
- the date that the job description was prepared and a review date
- names and signatures of the key people involved in its preparation.
A staffing and appointments policy and process should document how to develop and change a job description.
Look at the Human Rights Act 1993 to help you make sure there is no discrimination in the person specifications.
Human Rights Act 1993 – New Zealand Legislation
Resources#
How to hire – Guide for employers: This is a resource designed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to provide employers with information on good practice when recruiting and hiring employees, including information on job descriptions.
The hiring process – Employment New Zealand
CommunityNet Aotearoa provides practical ‘hands on’ resources to help organisations to get started and develop good practice in the voluntary sector environment.
Code of conduct#
Developing a code of conduct can be useful to outline your expectation for staff behaviour. For example, you could include expected behaviour in relation to:
- alcohol and other substances
- use of digital technology, like cellphone use
- babysitting out of hours.
Staffing schedules#
Staffing schedules support the smooth operation of an early childhood service.
They make sure it is clear when staff are responsible for children and when they can take lunch breaks or 'non-contact' planning time, for example. Draft schedules should be developed by services to work out:
- how many staff will be needed overall to comply with the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 (schedule 1)
- what hours each shift will need to cover, and
- which shifts will need to be filled by registered teachers to comply with the Education (Registration of Early Childhood Services Teachers) Regulations 2004.
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, schedule 1 – New Zealand Legislation
Staff records#
The ECE funding handbook requires records to be kept showing actual staffing levels and child attendance (as opposed to planned staffing levels). Your staffing schedule could be designed so that it can also be used as a staffing record for the purposes of funding. You can find an example in Appendix 2 of the funding handbook. Some software providers have packages available to help services.
Developing a schedule#
Developing schedules can be difficult. You may need to try lots of versions before you find one that suits your service.
Use the example schedule below as a guide and carry out the following steps.
Number of staff needed#
You should:
- Fill in the number of children (over 2 or under 2) that you have planned will be at the service every half hour (right hand column). At the start and end of the day, there are often fewer children attending. If this is the case, fewer adults may be needed at these times.
- Work out how many adults you will be required to employ for the number of children (every half hour) and write this number in the planned staff column.
- Alternatively, write in the number of adults your service will need if you want fewer children per adult than is required by the regulation. You can have more adults working with children than required, but not the other way around.
- Shade the boxes to show when each adult will actually be working with the children.
- Count across the columns to make sure there are at least as many adults working as the number planned.
Check at least 1 'person responsible' is on the premises supervising the adults and children at all times.
Hours for each staff member#
Check each adult:
- has adequate breaks (for example, lunch)
- is not working for too long each day
- has time to plan for children's learning and curriculum delivery.
Pay equity and pay parity#
As an employer, you must pay people the same for doing:
- the same work (equal pay)
- different work of equal value (pay equity).
Equal Pay Act 1972 – New Zealand Legislation
Pay equity#
Information about your obligations under the Equal Pay Act is available on the Employment New Zealand website.
Meeting your pay equity obligations – Employment New Zealand
Pay parity in Early Childhood Education#
What the pay parity opt-in scheme is
The pay parity opt-in scheme helps address the disparity in pay between certificated kaiako | teachers working in education and care and hospital-based services and equivalent kaiako | teachers in kindergartens.
Pay parity opt-in scheme for education and care services
The scheme provides higher funding rates to education and care and hospital-based services who pay all employed certificated kaiako | teachers at least the salary amounts described in the ECE funding handbook.
Employing teachers for your service#
Create a staffing schedule to help you decide how many teachers you will need, and for what hours you will need them. This should be based on anticipated enrolments. This process will also help you decide how many of these staff must be qualified teachers.
Decide what other staff will need to be employed. For example: cleaner, administration staff, manager, cook.
Develop job descriptions. It may be useful to look at job descriptions from other early childhood services, where possible.
Decide what salary rates and conditions you will offer. See the 'pay equity and pay parity' and ‘help with employment issues’ sections on this page.
Every employee must have a written employment agreement. It can be either an individual agreement or a collective agreement. Decide what the draft employment agreement between staff and the service will be.
Develop employment policies and procedures.
Advertise for staff. Look at the advertisements in the Education Gazette | Tukutuku Kōrero to help you.
Shortlist and interview applicants.
Do the safety checking process, reference checking and verify qualifications.
Formalise the employment agreement between staff and the service prior to employment.
Evidence of staffing when you apply for your licence#
To demonstrate compliance, your EC1 application (application to become a centre-based early learning service) must be accompanied by evidence of staff being employed or engaged and ready to commence work when the licence is issued.
You will also need to provide copies of the completed safety checking records for all children’s workers.
See the relevant regulation and licensing criteria.
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, Regulation 47
Help with employment issues#
Human resources#
Employment New Zealand has information to support human resource management. This includes templates for letters to appoint staff, fact sheets, employment agreement guides and help calculating parental leave for your employed staff. There is also an ‘Ask a question’ feature.
Tax#
Inland Revenue is a good starting point for finding out about obligations and entitlements concerning tax.
Teacher registration#
The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has information about the process of teacher registration.
Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand
Discrimination#
Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | Human Rights Commission website has information about equal opportunities, including a discrimination and complaints guide.
Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | Human Rights Commission
Unions#
The New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) is a union that negotiates collective employment agreements on behalf of many early childhood education teachers. As a condition of receiving higher levels of government funding, teachers must be paid at a rate that is at least as high as the lowest step on their ‘consenting parties' early childhood collective agreement’.
New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa
Oranga Tamariki#
The Oranga Tamariki Action Plan website helps you in identifying, supporting and protecting vulnerable children.
