Educators in services may take or record images or videos to document and communicate with you about your child’s learning and participation in early learning experiences.
Sharing images and videos through overly frequent updates can sometimes occur and take the place of providing more meaningful information to families and carers. This can also impact educators’ abilities to effectively supervise, interact and engage with children in their learning.
Early childhood services are responsible for ensuring documentation practices complement, rather than hinder, educators’ and teachers’ engagement in valuable learning experiences and interactions with children.
For the safety, health and wellbeing of children, services should follow strict protocols for taking, sharing and storing images and videos of children.
From 1 July 2024, all governments are encouraging approved providers of early childhood services to adopt a voluntary National Model Code for Taking Images or Videos of Children while Providing Early Childhood Education and Care (National Model Code).
The National Model Code and Guidelines will support early childhood educators as champions of child safety, and complement existing child safety activities and strategies.
They have been developed for use in centre-based early childhood education services approved to operate under the National Quality Framework, with a focus on long day care, preschools and kindergartens.
Any type of children’s education and care service may also choose to apply them.
You may notice these posters on display in your child’s service:
Educators at your child’s service may seek your views on how they are applying the National Model Code.
You may also wish to ask your service about its policies and practices on taking, sharing and storing images of children.