Tēnā koutou Playcentre Whānau,

Thank you for your patience while Playcentre Aotearoa have been working through the details of the changes to our funding requirements and surrounding processes with the Ministry of Education.

From 01 June 2021, the group supervision requirements (for standard funding) have been removed from the Funding Handbook. The updated supervision requirements in the Funding Handbook state:

  • For each session, all Playcentres must:
    • Ensure that at least one person takes the role of person responsible and holds a recognised qualification(external link), and
    • use a supervision plan approved by Playcentre Aotearoa, and
    • have no more than 30 children attending, and
    • have a maximum adult:child ratio of 1:5, and
    • ensure that all children under 2 and a half years of age are accompanied by a parent or caregiver.

This means that the group supervision requirements will now be an internal requirement to manage, rather than something controlled by the MoE. Group Supervision, i.e. working cooperatively, is an integral part of what makes Playcentre different from other ECE services in our communities, what makes us a great whānau support network. There is still work to be done around the criteria of what “Group Supervision” means to the day-to-day centre members, and how we will ensure that it is not left behind as we move forward. The national team are looking to build criteria in consultation with both Governance and Operations as this has impacts for all aspects of our organisation.  

Playcentre Aotearoa were not anticipating the change to the Funding Handbook supervision requirements to happen so swiftly and with such minimal notification. We acknowledge that it may come as a welcome relief for many of you and your centres, for others there may be concerns about the impact of this announcement.  

There will be changes to the Supervision Approval process as a result of this change. For the current round, we will continue to use the existing documentation, but please expect new documents to be circulated in time for Term 4. While we encourage centres to continue to aspire to the previously published group supervision requirements for the health, vitality and sustainability of their sessions, the Ministry of Education criteria no longer requires this. Centres still require 1 First Aider for every 25 children in attendance. Quality funding requirements have not changed.

We will be investigating with our local MoE offices what our options are for any centres who have applied for Discretionary Funding after 01 June but had a Person Responsible on site and will keep you and any of your impacted centres informed of the outcome.

Centres still need to contact the Regional Office when people are away to apply for Discretionary Funding – regional staff will then determine if the request can be approved internally, or pass on to MoE for approval if required. This enables us to ensure that sessions still meet all other criteria to run and also helps to identify trends and areas that need more support.

If you’ve got any questions about these changes, please contact your Centre Advisor.