Changing Childcare Ratios Setup
Ratios
The Timesavr ratios are predefined according to Alberta child care licensing standards. If you're operating a childcare centre in Alberta, then you should not be changing the ratio setup (nor the predefined age groups), unless the licensing standards have recently changed. If you're operating outside of Alberta, then feel free to update the default ratio settings to match the requirements for your jurisdiction.
Changing Ratios
To confirm, or change your ratios, go to Admin / Program / Ratio Setup. Here you can modify, insert or delete ratios for each age group. For information on Timesavr age groups, click here.
The ratios definitions are based on age groups, which are defined in Admin / Program / Age Groups. These age groups should always match the age groups as defined by your local childcare licensing body, and do not necessarily represent the age groups in your centre. This ratios list will list age groups that apply to both daycare and OSC. If your program does not care for some of these age groups, you may be tempted to delete them from this list, but this is not recommended because there's no benefit in deleting ratios or age groups you don't use, and if your program requirements ever change in the future then you will wish you hadn't deleted them. Also, you may occasionally care for a child who falls just outside of one of your expected age groups and if the ratio definition of the child's actual age group is missing, then you will see errors on your real time ratios page.
If you have the dayhome program enabled, you will also see the ratios values for dayhomes. Dayhome ratios are based on enrolment numbers, as opposed to daycares where the ratios are based on current attendance numbers. The dayhome maximum enrolment numbers are used on the dayhome profile page where Timesavr compares the actual enrolment numbers with maximum allowed enrolment.
Max Group Size
The max group size value is used by Timesavr to warn you if you have more than this number of children in a single group. However, because you may be allowed multiple groups in a single room, and because Timesavr can only warn you about group size within a single room, you may find this warning gives you too many false positives, so you can disable this warning in the Options, as seen below.
Options
These options are also accessible on the Ratios tab of your Settings page. The Settings page also gives you further options not shown here, such as whether or not to display the staff level or the child's age, and how to sort the children signed in on the ratios page.
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