Charitable Receipts

KINDERSCHULE SUPERVISION PROTOCOL

Background: Kinderschule has undertaken a review of supervision protocols and has created our first written protocol for maintaining secure supervision. The review came about because of an incident in which a child was able to leave the main classroom and get outside of our building.

Regulation: MELCC’s Best Practice Licensing Manual prescribes that children attending the child care centre be supervised at all times. Supervision must protect the health and safety of each child, and must be appropriate to each child’s developmental age. Nursery Schools must maintain a Child to Staff ratio of at least 10:1.

Changes to Kinderschule Site: our review found that there are two significant changes to the site that will impact the staff’s ability to provide appropriate supervision. One involves securing a door, the other, providing for chimes that alert staff to the operation of doors.

• The Kinderschule Classroom main entrance door (one of two means of egress) will be secured with a child-proof door latch placed above the children’s reach. This change has been approved by the Fire Inspector.
• All exit doors of the Kinderschule Classroom and of the Kinderschule Gym will be outfitted with electronic or manual chimes that alert the staff to the opening of the door. These are the two sets of double doors in the Gym and the two doors of the Kinderschule Classroom.

Changes to Parent Volunteering: our review also found that there is potential for the parents of children at Kinderschule to make a significant contribution to supervision standards. We will communicate with our parent body to encourage parent involvement in the three contexts below.

• Daily Classroom Times: volunteering to engage in the classroom activities with the children, preferably with some German. Without Investigation Authorization, parents must remain within view of staff whenever they are around children, including times when staff must go into the bathroom area. Parents must move into the classroom area within view of the bathroom door. If at the Gym, the staff must still bring all children to the classroom whenever a child needs to use the washroom, unless the parent has an Investigation Authorization — in this case, the parent may bring a child to the washroom if that child is able to use the washroom without assistance.
• Outdoor Time: for outings to the Grosvenor School, leaf collecting, walks in the snow, etc., parent participation will be sought so that there can be an adult on both sides  of children walking outside, one in front and one behind. Outdoor activities will only take place with one staff if each child in the group is known to reliably follow adult direction. Otherwise, a second adult will be required.
• Kinderschule Field Trips: Kinderschule Field Trip Permission Slips will now allow parents to indicate if they will stay on the trip. Consideration will be made by staff as to how many adult supervisors are ideal for a given trip — the need will vary by context. If the need is not met, the outing will be annulled. As we carpool, many parents are likely to participate in the outing, and parent involvement will continue to make important contributions to successful outings.

Protocols: Above all, there is one important protocol that must be unequivocally followed at all times at Kinderschule:

• children leaving any area of supervision must be immediately pursued, irrespective of other activities in the classroom. It is the utmost priority as it pertains to the physical safety of the the child in question.

Kinderschule Classroom: staff has awareness that our bathroom has very limited sight lines into the classroom space; the issue of children leaving the room unnoticed while we are attending to a child in the bathroom is now addressed with the door chimes. There is accordingly a new protocol:Protocols, cont’d

• whenever the door chimes while staff is not within view of the door, the staff must immediately attend to the child / children opening the door, and must next do a count of the children to ensure that all are present.

Kinderschule Gym: the Gym lacks a washroom and whenever a child must use the washroom, all children must return to the Kinderschule Classroom. In order to avoid this unfortunate disruption of the free play time in the Gym, children are instructed to go to the washroom at the end of Snack Time in the Classroom.

Grosvenor School Playground: Each child must hold another child’s hand during the walk to the school, and children for whom the direct walk to the school may be challenging must hold the staff person’s hand. All children must arrive at the street corner before the group commences to cross. Once the fence of the school yard is reached, children can freely run to the play structure. Children must remain at the play structure or on the field at all times.

Local Outings: we only undertake a few local outings. We either visit the back lane or the side yard of the church to collect leaves or play in snow. The staff person must keep the group together so that no child is further than 8 metres away (25 feet).

Field Trips: two staff members always attend each Field Trip. The need for additional adult supervisors will be addressed on a case-by-case basis and the trip will not proceed without a sufficient number of adults coming to supervise.

Summary: the incident of an unsupervised child brought focus to two areas:

• the need for adherence to appropriate protocols;
• and, the best use of our space and resources.