Frequently Asked Questions
Can anyone join?
Can anyone join Seedlings Education?
Yes, anyone can join but there are a few mandatory requirements:
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Your Educator will need to fill in the Daily Diary each day that they care for the children.
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Your Educator will need to have a visit once a month for an hour from our ECE Co-ordinator
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Your Educator will need to get creative and do Learning Stories and Programme Planning for the children. This is super simple and our ECE Co-ordinators are happy to help with this.
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Your Educator will be required to attend a 4-hour 'Child' First Aid course (paid for by Seedlings Education)
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Both the Parent and Educator must complete, sign and send in the monthly subsidy timesheet in order to receive the monthly subsidy
What is an Educator?
An Educator is simply the person taking care of your child. It can be a Nanny, a friend or even a member of your family (excluding parents of the child), although the Educator cannot reside at the same address as the enrolled child.
An Educator takes care of, interacts with and educates the child to ensure that they are getting the best start in life. They provide learning through role modelling, planning and documenting age appropriate activities for all children in their care.
Interested in hiring a Nanny? Contact Tinies Nanny Agency on 0800 TINIES or info@tinies.co.nz.
What does an Educator do?
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Fill in our Daily Diary
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Complete a fire evacuation plan for the family's house. We supply a fun evacuation plan that can be completed in 5-10 minutes.
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Plan the learning programme and complete learning stories. Learning stories are a very simple way of recording a special moment of the children’s development. This is usually a photo of the child and a little story about the milestone.
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Attend a 4-hour 'Child' First Aid course (paid for by Seedlings Education)
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Meet with your Seedlings Education Programme Co-ordinator each month for a maximum of one hour. This is a very friendly and low key meeting to bounce ideas off each other in regards to fun and exciting activities for the children’s development. It is also a great chance to to swap any toys or resources that you have borrowed from our free libraries.
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Attend a minimum of two of our Educator Workshops
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Sign and check the monthly subsidy timesheet to be sent in each month.
What do parents do?
We try to make things as simple and easy as possible for parents, but we do need your cooperation to ensure we maintain compliance with the Ministry of Education:
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You will be required to compete, sign & return a monthly subsidy timesheet by the deadline each month. Subsidies are paid out on the 20th of the month following (ie: June subsidies are paid on the 20th July).
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You need to notify us if you would like to start accessing your child’s 20 Free ECE hours through Seedlings Education (once your child turns 3 years old).
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You will need to complete a Change of Hours form if the Educator's hours change.
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You must notify us if your child is starting in another childcare facility or increasing their hours at another facility.
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If you decide to leave Seedlings Education you will need to fill in an Exit Form and provide 3 weeks notice.
How does the subsidy work?
Seedlings is more than a free service - we actually PAY YOU a subsidy for each child per enrolled hour, dependent on your child's age - up to $100 per child per week!
The maximum number of subsidised hours available is 6 hours per day, 5 days a week (total 30 hours per week). The maximum number of subsidised hours avilable for 3-5 year olds under the 20 Free ECE is 20 hours per week across ALL services (ie Kindy & Seedlings). If you are accessing some of your 3-5 year old's ECE hours elsewhere, we can claim any remaining ECE hours, as well as further hours at a lower subsidy rate.
Seedlings has a minimum enrolment of 12 hours per child per week.
Seedlings is not open on Public Holidays (so no subsidies are paid for Public Holidays)
Call us on 0800 Seedlings today to find out how much you could receive.
How does the Referral Fee work?
Refer a family to Seedlings and we will pay you $200 per referral!
Families must enrol for a minimum of two months and comply with Ministry of Education requirements prior to referral payment.
Why would I need Payroll services?
Seedlings Education also offers a Payroll Service. The idea is we simplify your life by outsourcing to iPayroll this task of taking care of all your Nannies / Educator Payroll needs such as PAYE, Holiday Pay, Sick Pay etc.
iPayroll is an internet based payroll processing service which allows you to login securely from any browser, anywhere, anytime. It is an innovative way to outsource your payroll requirements while keeping you fully in control. Please contact us for costs and further information.