Roles And Responsibility Of Teacher: Early Childhood Education Assignment Answer

Answer :

Case Scenario

Introduction

It is essential to maintain a clean and safe environment for the children, and this assignment will focus on the health of the children b considering various aspects. Caren who teaches in a kindergarten school and she looks after 20 rooms of the children age 4 to 5 with the accompaniment of the trained teacher.  This report is being done to establish the cleanliness in the surrounding so that children can stay safe and protected. The hygiene and the safety of the surrounding environment must need to be maintained, analysed and monitored so that the children can get a just environment. Careen is tracking the planning and supervision of the children. She takes care of the hygiene of the food and drinks which the children consume. Caren makes the children accustom with the environment.  This assignment will provide the clear outline of the roles and responsibility of the teacher, various guidelines regarding children safety, infection control and many more in convincing manner.

Guidelines for establishing a clean, safe and hygienic environment

According to the case scenario, the early childcare setting in question involves a room of 20 children aged between 4 and 5. In order to ensure that safe, clean and hygienic environment is established, teachers and supervisors of that setting must follow the following guidelines as outlined by National Law, National Regulations and National Quality Standard (NQS).

1. The teachers and supervisors in the care facility should ensure that regular cleaning is done for the premises by using appropriate cleaning agents as per recognised state/ territory regulations and requirements.
2. In the event of an outbreak of infection, a thorough cleaning is done using disinfectants to ensure a clean, safe and hygienic environment.  
3. For highly infectious conditions, sterilisation of all sterilisable equipment is done. 
4. For ensuring a hygienic environment in the care facility, teachers and supervisors must adhere to personal hygiene/health procedures outlined in the state/ territory regulations and requirements (World Health Organization 2016). 

Planning and monitoring supervision

For ensuring adequate control, Caren must plan and monitor supervision plans and monitor supervision by others. In order to do so, the caregiver must provide the following.  

• Teachers and educators must create plans for conducting regular safety checks of the premises and equipment at periodic intervals like weekly, monthly and quarterly. 
• They must be aware of the individuals authorised to pick up and drop the children. 
• Prepare a routine for monitoring children at all times
• Create process manuals for emergency activation, medication administration 
• Keep records of medications, first aid supplies, emergency services contact numbers, contact details of students’ facilities. 

Settling new children into the environment

As per the case study, Caren must ensure that the new child Sabrina will be a new chid arriving the day in question. To ensure that Sabrina settles in the care facility smoothly and the transition is made as smooth as possible for both Sabrina and other children, Caren must undertake the following activities. 

• Caren can conduct an orientation visit for the child in the presence of the parents so that the child feels comfortable. During the visit, Caren and other tutors at the facility should introduce themselves to the children.
• Caren should discuss the interests and routines of Sabrina with the parents and convey those to other tutors. 
• Caren can ensure that in order to be comfortable in the care settings, Sabrina brings her favourite toys with her so that she does not feel very out of place. 
• If at any instance, Sabrina feels uncomfortable or cries Caren or any other attending tutor should comfort her immediately. To do so, they can offer physical contact or treats like chocolates or ice creams if permissible by the parents. 

Infection control

As per the case scenario, Caren noticed that Jordon was feeling unwell and wondered if she needs to put any infection control measures and what those measures could. Following are the guidelines and procedures that Caren must follow in order to enable infection control in the care setting. 

1. The first step is isolating the child perceived to be ill from others and schedule a doctor’s visit. 
2. The next thing that caregiver must ensure is a decontamination of the premises.
3. Caregiver must arrange for immunization for all staff members and children if any child in the setting is diagnosed with having any infectious disease. 
4. Caregiver must ensure that hand hygiene protocols for all are at a place and adequately enforced to reduce the chances of an infectious disease outbreak (Anderson et al. 2015). 
5. Cleaning and disinfection or the care premises, as well as all equipment touched by children and staff, should be done. 
6. Guidelines and policies should be a place for reporting incidences of staffs falling ill, presenting symptoms like vomiting, diarrhoea. Such staffs should be excluded from the setting until a period of 48 hours is complete of being symptom-free (Czumbel et al. 2018). 
7. If two or more children present with the symptoms of any infectious disease staff should contact public health agency. 

Safe administration of medicine

In the case study, it was mentioned that Timothy's mother informed Caren that Timothy would need to be administered Penicillin half an hour before lunch. Concerning safely administering medication to Timothy Caren should ensure that following guideline is followed.  

1. Caren should ensure that medication that is being administered is whether prescribed by a registered paediatrician or not. Thus, she should ask for the doctor’s prescription alongside the medication. 
2. She should ensure that labelled medication that is being delivered by Timothy's mother is brought in the original container. If not, she should refuse to take that medication and administer it to Timothy.
3. She should ensure that the care setting is not to administer same medicine to any other child in case of presentation of similar illness as another child could have allergies to the medication (Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine and Committee on Infectious Diseases 2016)
4. With respect to storing the medication, she should ensure that containers have child protectant caps, stored in proper temperature and away from all food and drinks. 
5. Lastly, she must ensure that any caregiver administering the medication have completed a standardised course involving skills and competencies required for administering the medications. 

Regulatory safety guidelines for food and drink provision

As per the case study, Samantha, who are a dedicated teacher and Zahida, who is a parent helper ensures that the food and drinks consumption has been done by considering the proper safety and regulatory guidelines before serving the afternoon lunch. In doing so they have checked the following requirements:

1. The food that has been purchased includes only inspected meats, pasteurized milk, 100 fruit juices with no additives and involve no canned foods with leaking or bulging cans. 
2. While storing food, all food materials are washed, stored in an appropriate temperature in closed containers. Also, they should ensure that storage areas are clean.
3. Regarding the preparation of meals, all personals responsible for preparation of meals have followed proper hand hygiene protocols, have worked in washed and sanitised kitchen counters have used separate cutting boards and knives for cutting meats and vegetables/ fruits and cooked all meals thoroughly (Byrd-Williams et al. 2015). 
4. During serving meals, they must have ensured that foods are served in clean plates, bowls or napkins, servers have used properly washed and clean serving utensils, discarded all leftovers from children’s plate and stored any additional leftovers from the serving zone immediately in refrigerator.

Teacher’s role in managing and responding to signs of illness

As per the case study, Caren has recognised Jordan was not feeling well may have some illness. Later she identified that Jonny was jerking rhythmically, having trouble in breathing and have rolling eyes which points to possible seizures. With respect to these situations, the teachers have certain responsibilities in managing and responding to these signs of illness. These are as follows. 

1. Teachers are responsible for having basic knowledge of signs of common illness among children such as flue, fever, diarrhoea and vomiting and recognize these symptoms.
2. They should be able to identify emergent situations involving illness such as the seizures that Jonny was having and take appropriate actions. 
3. They are responsible for activating any emergency protocols and calling emergency services and ambulances if the situation seems out of control (Woods et al. 2019). 
4. Next, they must immediately inform the parents of the child in concern and notify them regarding the situation. 
5. A teacher should accompany an ill child to the hospital and stay there until the child’s guardian or parent arrives.

Key considerations and responsibilities for teachers in monitoring travel and excursion

As per the case study a excursion has been conducted to the local fire station and 20childrens are there. Caren is the responsible person of all the children. In such situation the responsibilities and consideration must need to be done properly by the Caren for the entire excursion. The consideration which Caren needs to undertaken are:

1. Caren should prepare a detailed plan of activities regarding the activities of excursion and determine the associated risks and risk tolerance level. 
2. She is responsible for sharing the plans with the parents of the children as well as care setting’s supervisor. 
3. She must obtain informed consent from all parents 
4. She should carry first aid kits and any other emergency items (Brookes 2018). 
5. She should have other teachers involved in order to manage all 20 children during the visit. 

Conclusion

This report highlighted the safety guidelines for the drink and food consumption as well as responsibility and roles of the teacher in order to minimise the sign of illness. In the above description, it is concluded that Caren is very much cautious about the health and hygiene of the children of her school. She makes sure that each and every child must be taken with proper care. From the description, it can be said that guidelines must need to be maintained to provide a clean and safe environment for the children. In that case, teachers and supervisors have an immense role. It is important for Caren to evaluate the supervision plan effectively. It is tough for the children to accustom with the new environment and for that various steps can be undertaken, which will be helpful for the Sabina and Caren also. Another important fact that has been highlighted in this section the infection control and this is the major consideration for Caren because immunity system of the children is low and infection can happen even in a small interaction with the infected one. In order to ensure its proper cleaning by using the disinfectant is necessary. Also, proper policies and guidelines need to be followed.