Effective supervision is in childcare is very important because it creates an environment that is safe and responsive to the needs of all children.
It also helps to protect children from hazards or harm that might happen in their play and daily routines.
Effective supervision also allows educators to engage in meaningful interactions with children.
What does all this mean?
Supervision is not just standing around and watching the children play.
As an educator you have to be actively involved with children and have knowledge of what each child is doing at any given time of the day.
You have to be able to see and hear all the children to be able to keep them safe.
Good supervision means that an adult can respond immediately to the child, including when a child is distressed or in danger.
Supervision can happen close by like if you need to supervise a child climbing on a climbing frame or doing something risky.
Supervision can also be from far away like just knowing what the children are up to so if they get into some trouble or get upset you can go an help them.
Sometimes you have to supervise from close up and far away at the same time! It means you have to have eyes and ears that are wide open and everywhere!
You could work with other staff and communicate with them regularly to make sure all children are supervised. There are educator/children ratios which means the minimum number of educators that there has to be for a certain number of children.
Ratios in Victoria at the moment are 1:4 under 3 years and 1:11 3-5 years.
In kinder like with the Dolphins that means in a class of 22 you only have 2 teachers (Angela and Valentina). That’s a lot of children to supervise for two people so they need to work together (eg: if one person is inside, then the other person is outside) to make sure the children are supervised properly.
Supervision is a chance to get to know the children, what they like to do, who their friends are. Playing WITH and talking TO the children while they play is important because it helps educators plan new learning experiences for the children that they know they will love because they have gotten to know them really well.
TASK: You are outside with the Dolphin children. The children are playing. Some are doing the obstacle course where they jump off the high plank onto the mattress. There are 2 children playing on the rope swing. There is one child hiding in the cubby in the corner of the yard. You hear one of the children on the rope swing screaming and crying. What do you do? Discuss this with your coach and write down your answers.
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