Working effectively with three educators
Interviewee
Emily (Educator):
Karina (Educator):
Rose (Educator):
Karina (Educator):
Loretta (Educator):
Rose (Educator):
Maria (Educator):
Transcript
[0:11] I think working as a team with the three of us in the room is giving
us ways to broaden our ideas and share each other’s knowledge.
Whether you’re a teacher, the Diploma, or the Certificate III, everyone is
valued as a team member and the work together that we’re doing, you
can see success out of it. Whether it’s one child that needs attention,
you still know that there’s two people in the room, they can work with
the other children and while you comfort, or assist, or support that child
and their needs.
[0:30] It means all three roles have had the opportunity project work. So
the Cert III is definitely up-skilling, because she’s now wanting to work
with this project work. The diploma has just loved having the
opportunity to really develop her skills, and it’s been a great way for us as
individuals to get to know the children.
I would say having a meeting at the start of the year and really discussing
expectations, like, “What do you feel your workload should be and what I
feel your workload should be?” Have those difficult questions answered,
because we come in with different expectations. So have that clear and
make it specific.
[1:10] We’re not specific to our environment. If I’m outside, I don’t have
to be explicitly outside. I can move inside, because there’s three of us.
Yes, saying - I feel that I’m not specific zoned to outside or inside. The
children can freely move and choose which area they want, and then if
they’re all outside and three are inside, that’s okay because there’re still
two staff outside, and then the person inside gets to spend quality time
with those three children. They don’t have to pack up because majority
of the children are outside. We still are in ratio there.
[1:34] Children are able to choose more freely between the two spaces,
and that third staff member is able to float between the two spaces
easily. So it has also meant too, because there's three staff, the three
educators can move between the spaces a bit more.
Also, the opportunities for staff to call parents, particularly those hard-toreach families, that’s working really well this year. We're touching base
more with families that we tend not to see.
[1:57] So we plan as a team, altogether. We divide the children into
focus groups, I’ve said before. But we will sit down as a team, look at
what’s happening in the room, reflect on the observations of the
children, change things that we need to change but we’re always mindful
of the time that people have.
[2:22] There's more ideas going into the planning, and I feel that the
planning is more - is definitely high quality because there's three staff
looking at the program, there's three of us collaborating together, there's
three of us building the team for the children, and working on the
program together. It's not just myself doing the planning. It's three of us
doing it.
[2:43] We actually get a bit of planning time in the morning session,
before class. So we make a point of where the three of us, we stop
putting out the ... we stop whatever we're doing in the room, and we
have a group discussion about what activities, what resources, what kind
of focus groups we need for observations. We basically just discuss
everything at the beginning of the day.
Working effectively with three educators
Emily (Educator):
[3:09] The opportunity with the additional educator is that we're able to
meet with the families at drop-off and pick-up. We're able to speak to
them through drop-off and pick-up time, and also having the additional
programming time with our diploma staff is actually discuss what's going
with the families, and have that effective communication. But also to
meet with the families and support them more if we need to.