Karmel
Ward
2010001895
Blog
4. Post 4
In
order to understand how teachers do they're practice, it is important to
discuss management’s implications of policies and politics so that teacher’s
pedagogical skills are always improving. Pedagogy may be defined as "the
practice of teaching (Siraj-Blatchford, 2004)".
In
all early childhood settings in New Zealand they have policies put in place so
that children's health and safety should never be at risk. A policy which I am
familiar with in my setting is known as a 'staffing ratio policy'.
Management are keeping up with the demands of rostering staff members to
the children enrolled in the setting each day.
However,
I believe that the Ministry of Education's ratios are not meeting the needs of
'quality care' which centres are expected to provide. My opinion is supported
through what the Education Review Office recommends on what the teacher child
ratios should be, which is, "one to three ( ERO, 2016)". For children
under the aged of two years old. They suggest this number because when "adults
provide quality care through the environment, it is understood to have an
impact for the development of children (ERO, 2016)."
Free for kids.com. Retrieved from: http://www.free-for-kids.com/simple-ratios-worksheets.shtml
Free for kids.com. Retrieved from: http://www.free-for-kids.com/simple-ratios-worksheets.shtml
The
reason why the ratios have not decreased is because politically, there is not
enough government funding. How do you put a price on quality care? Managements
implications of ratios, is that some settings are separated by age groups but
they are run under one licence. This would affect ratios and the number of
qualified staff. For example in blog three I had mentioned that they're may be
one teacher catering for 15 children in the outdoor area, and one teacher
inside catering for 5 children. Technically they are in ratio for the amount of
children however if an accident should arise outside who would look after the
other 14 children? Because of this I believe that the ratio standards have not
been properly legislated.
Kate's pow-wow. (2009). Retrieved from: https://katebowenpowwow.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/confus6.jpg
Kate's pow-wow. (2009). Retrieved from: https://katebowenpowwow.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/confus6.jpg
To
answer my question in the first blog as to why the ratios are so high? The
numbers are high because that is what the government has set them out to be in
terms of funding. Even though the Education Review Office suggests a decreased
number of teacher child ratios to improve quality care, there is still not
enough funding to cater for the needs of children.
Education Review Office. (2016). Priority learners. Retrieved from:http://www.ero.govt.nz/Review-Process/Frameworks-and-Evaluation-Indicators-for-ERO-Reviews/He-Pou-Tataki-How-ERO-reviews-early-childhood-services/PART-2-Outcomes-for-children-in-early-childhood-education/Priority-learners
Free-For-Kids.com. (2016). Retrieved from: http://www.free-for-kids.com/simple-ratios-worksheets.shtml
Kates Pow-Wow. (2009). Retrieved from: https://katebowenpowwow.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/confus6.jpg
Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2004). Quality Teaching in the Early Years (in) Anning, A., Cullen, J. and Fleer, M. (Eds.). Early Childhood Education: Society and Culture. London:Sage Publications, pp. 137-148
I think that this issue is very important. It is sad that there is not enough funding to provide quality care through higher ratios. I often think of the situation that you described above regarding if a child had an accident and a teacher had to tend to that child. Who would care for the other children? It does seem like crowd management in some centres as if one teacher is busy with a child the other teachers can only 'crowd manage' the other children. This is not quality education!
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