OSHC service in SA, Tas, Vic or WA? Significant changes in documentation coming soon

Changes to documentation requirements for outside school hours care (OSHC) are on the way in South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. 

 

From 1 July 2023, services that educate and care for school age children in SA, Tas and Vic will start to follow the same documentation requirements as services in the Northern Territory , New South Wales and Queensland. 

 

Specifically, the legislation which is being amended is: 

 

• SA – Regulation 325B Programs for children over preschool age 
• Tas – Regulation 345A Programs for children over preschool age 
• Vic – Regulation 359A Programs for children over school age 
• WA – Regulation 373A Programs for children over school age.

 

Specifically, services will NOT be required to keep documentation of individual evaluations of school-age children. 

 

Services ARE required to understand each child and their strengths, ideas, abilities and interests and their progress across the learning outcomes as part of the planning cycle. This can be reflected in documenting how and why the educational program has been developed to support all children to participate in the program.

 

To meet these requirements, the approved provider must ensure that evidence about the development of the educational program for a child over preschool age is documented. 

 

Services in all states and territories with a mix of school-age children and children preschool age or under are required to document individual child assessments for the children preschool age or under and align these to the relevant approved learning framework.

 

In preparing the documentation, services must consider the period of time that the child is being educated and cared for by the service (regulation 74).

 

Further guidance on the changes, along with more information about documentation in an OSHC context, may be found here.