Need-to-know | Me mātua mōhio

Changes to requirements for licensed home-based ECE services

More flexibility for the educator qualification requirements

From 1 January 2025, each licensed home-based service must engage qualified educators and/or educators working towards a home-based service qualification. This should ease pressure on individual services because they can use a mix of qualified and/or unqualified educators working towards a home-based qualification without needing to engage a minimum percentage of qualified educators.

You can find what qualifications count as a home-based service qualification here:

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 – New Zealand Legislation

Unqualified educators will need to enrol in a course offering a home-based service qualification by 1 July 2025 to continue working in their service. Depending on the qualification itself, educators will have two-to-four years to complete the qualification.

Other educators joining a service will have six months to enrol in a course offering the qualification.

Record keeping requirements will ease

Changes to the qualification requirements mean that from 1 January, service providers will no longer need to keep a monthly record that shows they meet the percentage requirements. However, they still need to keep a record of educators’ qualifications, enrolment status and the corresponding dates. These should be updated regularly, for example, when an educator joins or leaves a licence, whenever an educator enrols in a home-based service qualification, and when an educator completes the qualification. Ideally, this record would be updated every six months to keep track of the qualification status of educators as they work through the qualification.

You can find the new requirements here:

Education (Early Childhood Services) Amendment Regulations 2024 – No 2 New Zealand Legislation

Changes to the person responsible requirement

From 1 January 2025, person(s) responsible in home-based services can work in more than 2 licensed services per month.

Single funding rate set to quality rate

From next year, all licensed home-based services will receive a single funding rate, which is set to the same level as the quality rate.

For the November 2024 to February 2025 period, services will receive four months’ advance funding in line with their current funding entitlements. The March 2025 wash-up payment will be used to correct any over or underpayments, which will include changes in funding entitlements.

From March 2025 onwards, services will receive four months’ advance funding at the single funding rate.

Services currently receiving standard funding rates will be contacted directly and asked to complete an updated EC11HB form to show that they intend to continue operating in 2025.

At this time, the visiting teacher support payment, which provides extra support for services receiving standard funding rates, will no longer be available.

Conditions attached to the quality funding rate lapse on 1 January 2025

To receive the quality funding rate for the November to December 2024 period, licensed home-based services will be expected to comply with existing quality funding rate conditions.

However, from 1 January 2025, these conditions lapse. Instead, all licensed services will only need to comply with requirements contained in the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 and associated licensing criteria. You can find the requirements here:

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 – New Zealand Legislation

To comply with the supervision requirement in regulation 44(1)(d)(i), persons responsible need to continue fulfilling the duties prescribed in regulations 28(2) and 62(1) and be available at all times children attend the service. Compliance with this requirement will be primarily assessed based on existing assessment practice for regulations 28(2) and 62(1). However, there may be circumstances where we need to request additional information such as timesheets and hours of work.

Until the changes are in place, the current regulations and funding handbook requirements will still apply for licensed home-based ECE services.

Health alerts and advice from Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora

You may wish to share this information with your staff and wider service community.

Pertussis (whooping cough) awareness and prevention

A pertussis epidemic was declared across Aotearoa New Zealand on 22 November.

Whooping cough epidemic declared across Aotearoa New Zealand – Health New Zealand

Pertussis (also known as whooping cough) can be particularly severe, and sometimes fatal, for babies many of whom require hospital care.

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora is encouraging those who are pregnant or have regular contact with young babies or preschool children to check they are up to date with pertussis vaccinations.

Whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine – Health New Zealand

Protect against measles

Measles is a serious and extremely contagious disease that affects adults and children. It is increasing in countries that Kiwis travel to frequently, including the United States and in Southeast Asia and Europe.

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora is encouraging vaccination for people who do not have immunity to measles, particularly those who are planning to travel overseas in the holidays.

Measles Immunity – Health New Zealand

Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine – Health New Zealand

Support with checking vaccination records

Advice about vaccines and immunisation records for children aged 16 and under is available from the free vaccination Healthline on 0800 28 29 26, 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week. Māori, Pacific and disability support services are available to provide assistance.

Vaccination Healthline - Healthpoint

Playgroup funding

A reminder to playgroups that the July to December 2024 playgroup operational funding round will be closing on 31 December, and the January to June 2025 funding round will be opening from 1 January.

Playgroups can apply for operational funding using the Education Resourcing System (ERS). You should create a funding request for the July to December 2024 period by 13 December. This will give your local Te Mahau office time to process your funding request before all Ministry offices close on 20 December. –

You cannot create a new request for this period after the closure of the current funding period on 31 December. Get your playgroup authoriser to approve the request before submitting it to us.

Targeted funding for disadvantage reporting deadline

If you received more than $2,000 in targeted funding for the 2024 calendar year, you are required to report on how this funding is used by 1 February 2025.

We will send an email to the funding contact of your service in the next two weeks. This will provide a link to a form that collects the required information for this reporting.

The information you provide will help us better understand how this funding is used and how effective the funding is in supporting children.

13-4 Reporting requirements for Targeted Funding

Once completed, send to [email protected].

Recording holiday season closures

Services are reminded to check the absence rules in the ECE Funding Handbook for the upcoming holiday period and to record absences accurately.

6-4 Absence rules

When a service is open during the holiday period, and parents have confirmed that their child(ren) will attend, teachers are present, but no children attend the service that day, services are entitled to funding for that day and should use the SO code. Evidence of booked enrolments must be maintained for auditing purposes.

‘Holiday’ refers to a day that an early learning service would not normally operate on but has agreed with parents to open – for example, on a statutory holiday or during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. This code cannot be used on a normal operating day.

You can only claim funded child hours for the hours your staff are present for that day. For example, if the teacher starts at 9am and closes the service at 12pm (instead of 3pm), you can only claim funded child hours for the half day.

Heads-up | He kupu puaki

Education Gazette online only from 2025

From Term 1 2025, the Education Gazette | Tukutuku Kōrero will no longer be printed. It will become an online-only publication and will be produced 12 times a year, instead of 16. The shift is designed to modernise our communication, support our sustainability goals and manage costs.

You can expect the same high-quality content, which will be published on the Education Gazette website and as a digital magazine on Issuu, where you will have the option to download and print.

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There will be no change to the online education vacancies, professional learning and development (PLD) opportunities, or notices.

We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and appreciate your continued support. You can subscribe here:

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