Cait Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Marley, yes it is far better!!! But I still disagree with the 1's in the table!! There should never be only 1 member of staff!! From what you have said on here you committee can misunderstand things even when you explain them clearly to them, and I wouldn't want you to ever be put in the position where they said you only needed one staff member on. I personally like the table, but replace all 1's with 2's. If you get what I mean!! yes, I've done that - no ambiguity when dealing with committees! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Good idea...here was me thinking that we have told them often enough that there has to be at least 2 staff...wouldnt want to give thm any ideas!!! :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMaz Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Good table - and according to it I am overstaffed by one person. Which is exactly how I like it. Now can anyone do me a table that shows what the staffing requirement would be when an EYP is working with the children and the ratio is 1:13... And of course this table shows minimum staffing ratios and we all know that depending upon the mix of children, nature of the setting and activities and experiences on offer, these ratios may not be sufficient to effectively meet children's needs. I think this can be really challenging for all types of groups - not just for committes who might not fully understand the nature of our work, but also for owners and managers with an eye on the bottom line. If I could wave a magic wand I would fund every group so that every setting or room within a setting could have a 'spare' member of staff at all times so that no team ever had to work to mimimum ratios at any time during the day. If Mr Darling could put that in his next budget Gordong Brown would be assured of my vote! I'm not sure how he'd pay for it of course, but one can only dream... Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 but would you want to work to those ratios Maz... dont think so... if I have it right you could have 13x 3 year olds and 4x 2 year olds with 2 staff... think HELP would be the cry... Inge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMaz Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 but would you want to work to those ratios Maz... dont think so... Quite so, Inge! The clue was the at the end of my question! I remember Steve saying ages ago that he uses it whenever he says something that is likely to get him into trouble, so that's how I use it now - usually when I've said something a bit provocative. However it highlighted my point nicely, I think - that 'minimum' isn't always 'desirable'. And certainly I would hate to think any future employer would use my Status to enforce a 1:13 ratio - in fact it would be a real deal breaker as far as I am concerned. Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 As I think I posted (but might have only thought it!) we count three year olds as three from the point they become funded. This was on advice from our LA so would yours make a similar recommendation so your committee would not try to alter the ratio before then? Personally I can't see how they can count a child as 3 if they will be three soon, and to thry to change the ratio everytime a child has a birthday would be a nightmare for the planning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alison Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 my information was based on the way we have always managed the staffing numbers under the old national standards, I did show the ofsted inspector the staff ratio chart and she didnt say it was wrong. As the ratios hadnt changed from the standards to the eyfs then I saw no reason to think the way we should calculate the staff ratios had changed Im now feeling a little paranoid whether I am doing it right??? yeah feel free to ammend the chart theres no copyright to it, it was just something I knocked up, I would never work with just 1 member of staff (but 1's were just for calculating purposes,) the chart also helps with staff deployment so if a member of staff is doing an activity with a group of children during session then we would try to make sure that there was adequate staff for the size of the group (hence the 1's) as for the eyp 1:13 will that be for just the 3+ year olds what about the under 3's? (I need to look at the ratios) what happens in a setting with an eyp and the eyp is off sick!?!??! do they have to send the extra 5 children home? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynned55 Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 Marley I think the key thing here would be your insurance. I was told once by ours when I had a query, that as long as we weren't breaking the terms of our registration then we were ok with our insurance. Now I would think that if you are not keeping to the legal ratio then you are breaking the terms of your registration and so on. Your committee (sorry but they seem to me to be very short sighted) cannot treat a child that is soon to be 3 as a three year old, they aren't 3 they are 2. We are registered to take children from 2 years old, they have to be 2 years not 1 year and 10/11 mths and if we took them then would be breaking the terms of our registration and render our insurance invalid. Surely this is the same as your committee treating a 'nearly' 3 as already 3 for the purposes of ratios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 Hi all Thanks for some good comments about this! Have emailed chair, admissions sec and supervisor about this so they are all aware. Last time super and i had a battle on our hands getting things changed but it was done to our way eventually!. We are just going to have to do it again. But you know our committee at the mo...its secret whispering across me in the playground about finances and how much they will be in debt at the end of this month! There was that much nodding, sign language over my back about this (some of the comm members are my"friends" a their children in same class as my son) that i actually pointedly said did they want me to leave and stand somewhere else?! Thi is why i will be glad when this comm leaves (if they all do). They pounce on me as soon as i enter the playground eg where are the time sheeets, why have i not got them, why was the supervisor not at the comm meeting etc etc. At one point went to playground with my mum and she was shocked at how one comm member spoke to me in front of others. I ended up telling her to refer to supervisor as had nothing to do with me and walked away. Not very professional of them. Would like to just go back to being a mum with them. Anyway will let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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