Governing and managing your early childhood service

The booklet ‘Community based Early Childhood Education, Governing and Managing’ is available as a download on the right of this page. This booklet is a revision of the ‘Governing and Managing your community based early childhood education service resource’, first published in June 2004.

Getting involved in running your early childhood service provides an opportunity to ensure that your children get the best possible learning environment for their early years. You will learn new skills and play a part in making sure your service runs smoothly and efficiently.

The booklet explains the difference between governing and management of your service. It uses some content from the previous resource but has several new sections including requirements from new Regulations which came into force in 2008.

It is intended as a resource to dip into when needed and to provide guidance when difficulties arise.

Services licensed prior to 1 December 2008 can operate under the 1998 Regulations for 6 years to 30 November 2014. These services must apply to be re-licensed after 1 December 2008 and operate under the 2008 Regulations.

This booklet refers to both sets of Regulations. The terms used in the 2008 Regulations are stated first and the terms used in the 1998 Regulations are stated second.

We recommend you read this booklet alongside Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 and Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Centres 2008.

This booklet has 11 chapters to guide your service and there are a variety of example forms throughout the book which can be adapted for your service:

• Chapter 1: Roles and responsibilities
• Chapter 2: Statement of Philosophy
• Chapter 3: Responsibilities of governing
• Chapter 4: Stakeholders
• Chapter 5: Managing your service
• Chapter 6: The management group
• Chapter 7: Leadership and planning
• Chapter 8: Policies
• Chapter 9: Reporting and records
• Chapter 10: Risk management
• Chapter 11: Meetings.