Put simply, the teacher-infant ratio refers to a measure of the number of children for whom each child care provider is responsible. For example, if each caregiver cares for 8 children, the ratio is 1 to 8. It is one of the first few questions that every parent will ask about when searching for a preschool for their children.
While we all vaguely know how important teacher-infant ratio is, many of us do not know why exactly it is important. Today, we explore the reasons as to why teacher-infant ratios matter particularly in infant care centres.
Safety Concerns
As parents, we know how difficult it may be to care for just one child. We almost always worry that we might neglect their care and he or she may get hurt or injure themselves throughout the day. This is the same for teachers! It is even more challenging for them, having to safely care for the well being of a group of infants, toddlers, or young children.
Close supervision is required to help prevent children from getting hurt, and it is difficult and even dangerous if the teacher-infant ratio is large! This is especially so for infants, as this age group requires almost constant attention. Therefore, an infant care centre with a smaller teacher-infant ratio might be at lower risk of injuries and accidents, as teachers are able to sufficiently supervise your child!
Greater Quality Care
When an infant care centre has a good teacher-infant ratio, there will be an adequate number of teachers.
This also means that the workload of each teacher is shared, and that they would most probably have the capacity and bandwidth to implement a curriculum that is of high quality. A great curriculum is essential to help your children learn, grow, and develop well!
Simply managing a class is different from teaching a curriculum. When teachers have a manageable class size, they would be able to move from struggling to manage a classroom to efficiently teach it.
Bonding and Relationships
Since teachers spend most of their time with your child at school, they are considered a secondary caregiver. It is well researched that infants and children thrive when they have good and strong relationships and ties with their caregivers.
If a teacher is caring for too many infants at once, it is impossible for them to develop strong and lasting relationships with all of them.
Greater Learning Outcomes
Infants and young children are stimulated and learn well through sensory play, otherwise known as any type of play that involves any of the senses. It is widely studied that sensory play is important and essential for infant to learn more about the world around them in a natural and exciting way.
If a class is too large, teachers are unable to provide undivided attention to infants who are engaging in sensory play. This is not only dangerous, but it also means that your little ones may not be benefitting from sensory play to learn motor, cognitive, as well as social skills that are otherwise essential for his or her growth!
The Bottom-line: Does Size Matter?
The short answer is, yes, size does matter! Smaller class sizes essentially increase the personal guidance that your child receives from a teacher. However, do keep in mind that the effectiveness and quality of an infant care centre and its curriculum also largely depends on the ability of the teachers to teach as well as to provide the required level of attention to infants at an infant care centre!
At Nurture Infant House and Genesis Childcare, we believe that our teachers play a vital role in nurturing and scaffolding the children to reach their fullest potential. All our teachers are professionally certified,
and carefully selected based on their professional qualifications and experience.
In addition, we have a small teacher-infant ratio of 1:3 to provide undivided attention and care to your little one so that they can benefit the most out of our comprehensive curriculum.
One final tip, before you scurry on to find the infant care centre that has the smallest teacher-infant ratio, make sure you take into consideration your child’s needs and personality so that you can cater to them when making a choice too!
Nurture Infant House (Tampines) At Nurture Infant House, our passion is to love and care for each infant and to provide a safe and interactive environment for infants to learn and grow in body and in mind independently. If you are looking for infant care in Tampines or in East, do visit Nurture Infant House. We have over 30 years of experience in nurturing thousands of infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers.
If you are looking for a preschool for toddlers and older children in Tampines or in East, do visit Genesis Childcare 1989.
Feel free to book an appointment through WhatsApp.
You can visit us at the following venues:
Nurture Infant House (Tampines) (2 to 18 months Infants) Blk 433 Tampines Street 43 #01-61 Singapore 520433
Tel: 96664141
Genesis Childcare 1989 (Tampines)
Blk 433 Tampines Street 43 #01-63/65 Singapore 520433
Tel: 96664141