This expands up upon and refines some of the messages in last week’s bulletins.

At the Red setting, the general principle is that early learning services are open for all children to attend. In this unsettled time, it remains important for children to have familiar spaces to explore, learn, grow and connect with their peers.

The COVID-19 Protection Framework puts a number of mitigations in place that are layered together to help keep children as safe as possible while they are attending early learning. These include having only vaccinated adults working with them, increased ventilation and hygiene measures, as well as ensuring that everyone stays home when they are sick.

COVID-19 Protection Framework resources for early learning services – Te Mahau

We know that what life looks like currently at Red varies in different communities.

As the number of infections increase, we expect there may be challenges for early learning providers to deliver full services to all children. This may include where staff are required to isolate due to testing positive, being at a location of interest, or being a household contact of someone with COVID-19.

If this occurs at your centre, it would be the time to encourage those families who can appropriately care for their children at home to consider doing so. This will help preserve what may be limited capacity for those with the greatest need.

In support of this, at Red we will continue paying early learning services the Ministry funding for these children that would normally stop after a period of non-attendance. Parents will need to confirm that they intend their child to return to their early learning service – you can find more information on our website.

Funding settings under the new traffic light system – Te Mahau

The circumstances of some families, including those who have a child at higher risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19, may mean that keeping their child at home is the best decision right now.

Whānau should be supported in these choices and provided with information to help guide them. This could include details on the particular measures the service has put in place at Red.

Unlike the alert level systems, there are no strict rules about who should attend or not at each setting. Services have the ability to make their own decisions, in consultation with their early learning communities.

Recognising that situations may change quickly, a flexible and responsive approach will likely be necessary for all.

The contact tracing toolkit to assist early learning services and kōhanga reo to identify close contacts when there is a confirmed COVID-19 case in an early learning service has been updated on our website.

The updated guidance includes letter templates for close contacts and the wider community.

Early learning services connected to a confirmed case – Ministry of Education

We are currently working with the Ministry of Health to identify what changes need to be made to the toolkit in preparation for Phases 2 and 3 of the Omicron COVID-19 response.

In July 2021, the Minister announced a class border exception to allow up to 300 overseas qualified teachers to come to New Zealand to work in eligible early learning services, schools and kura.

Each successful employer application provides a critical purpose visa for one teacher, along with their partner and children.

Following Cabinet approval in late December 2021, the initial eligibility criteria for a border exception application has been widened to include all registered early learning services, regardless of their rating under the Health Deprivation Index. The Ministry has also removed the cap of two applications per early learning service.

We have advised all existing applicants and employers of this change. We would also invite any other service to consider applying for a place if required.

Updated information on how to apply is available on our website and inquiries can be made by contacting border.exceptions@education.govt.nz

Class border exemptions – Ministry of Education

In October the Ministry ran a Pay Parity Staffing Survey that many of you put considerable work into answering.

We appreciate the time contributing providers put into their responses, especially during the current COVID-19 climate. That information is helping inform funding requirements for Budget 2022.

You may be aware the Minister of Education has recently agreed that a review be undertaken so the funding system can better align funding to services for pay parity.

To help with this, the Ministry will be asking for service financial information from you in March 2022. The Pay Parity Staffing Survey data will also be used in this review.

The collection of this financial information will be targeted at education and care service providers and homebased service providers. It is voluntary, however, we strongly encourage your participation as it will provide critical input to determining a preferred approach to better align funding to certificated teacher salary costs.

We want to give you advance notice to ensure you have time to prepare for this collection because, although some of the information we are seeking will likely be readily available to you, other items may require more work to extract and check and support may be required. 

The financial information we will be seeking is for each service and includes, for the period from 30 June 2020 – 1 July 2021:

• service revenue from non-Ministry of Education government sources (Ministry of Social Development)
• service revenue from parents separated into fee revenue and other revenue (excursions)
• service expenses split by:
  • certificated teacher salaries
  • other expenses as a combined amount. 

Thank you for supporting this work.

If you have any questions about the collection prior to it being sent in March, send them to ece.statistics@education.govt.nz.

As noted in the bulletin on 14 December 2021, services can use electronic means for the verification of attendance records from Tuesday 1 February.

Electronic verification of attendance records – Early Learning Bulletin 14 December

The Funding Handbook has been amended to the following:

• chapter 11-1 no longer requires electronic attendance records to be verified in pen
• the terms ‘Authorised signatory’ and ‘Electronic Signature’ have been added to the glossary 
• the Electronic Attendance Records Criteria has been added to the Funding Handbook.

The Electronic Attendance Records Criteria outlines the requirements that must be met if a service wishes to maintain and verify their attendance records electronically.

The Ministry does not approve or accredit systems that provide electronic verification.

Some Student Management Systems will be offering this service. However, early learning services can operate their own system as long as they meet the 'Electronic attendance records criteria' along with the wider requirements outlined in the Funding Handbook.

The use of electronic verification of attendance records is optional. Services that choose not to use electronic methods of verification will still be required to maintain and verify their records in pen.

Electronic attendance records criteria – Ministry of Education

For anyone questions regarding electronic verification processes, contact us at ece.funding@education.govt.nz.