Regulations, Rules, and ECE Service Legal Requirements
Regulations and Licensing Criteria: A Guide for Parents
The “My ECE Guide to Early Childhood Service Regulations and Licensing Criteria for Parents.”
View the full guide here.
The regulatory requirements early childhood services must comply with at all times to keep their licence are outlined here in plain language in the My ECE Guide to the Regulations and Licensing Criteria.
Choose a category to see the articles within that category
The “My ECE Guide to Early Childhood Service Regulations and Licensing Criteria for Parents.”
View the full guide here.
An early childhood service is defined in law as being “Any premises used regularly for the education or care of 3 or more children (not being the children of the person providing the care) under the age of 6.
Find out more here.
When services break the rules, the Ministry of Education may choose to give it a written direction to make an improvement, or change its licence to provisional or suspended.
There is no system of fines or other penalties.
Read the full details here.
What a licence is, the classes of licence, details shown on the licence which must be displayed, and the requirement for the licence holder to be a fit and proper person.
Here’s a full outline on what you need to know about licences.
Adult-to-child ratios is the minimum number of adults necessary to have depending on the number of children.
Get the details here.
Here’s the number of qualified staff, type and level of qualification required for working in different early childhood education settings.
Will your child always be within a sight of an adult? Are the adults caring for your child supervised?
Here’s the minimum legal requirements you can expect an ECE service to at least have in place.
The regulations on the maximum number of children allowed to attend, and when a child is counted or not counted as being in the ratios for the licence size.
View full details here.
Can an older sibling pick up their little brother or sister from the centre or service?
There are some specific rules on who can be authorised to do pick-up, under what circumstances, and the person’s age.
Here’s the full details on the rules.
Here’s the space minimum requirements, design of space, layout, and use of space rules for early childhood centres and home-based ECE.
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