Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi – With your basket and my basket, the people will live
*** Important Information***
After receiving the Ministry of Education’s pānui dated 15/08/2020, Infocare Solutions will again be applying a blanket exemption of the frequent absence rules for all permanently enrolled children from the 12th August 2020 to 30th September 2020 inclusive.
What does this mean for you?
You do not need to add any new timetables to apply the EC12 exemption; our enhancement has applied this exemption in the background. You will however need to modify child daily sign in sheets date from 12/08/2020 up to date, please see the step by step on point “D. Modify Child Daily Sign in Sheets”
This is a document to provide you with information about what administrative tasks need to be done in Infocare for Alert Levels 2 and 3:
Infocare Enhancement | 12/08/2020 – 30/09/2020
A. Alert Level 3 and Level 2 – Service Operating
B. Alert Level 3 – Service Closed
C. Modify Child Daily Sign in Sheets
D. Frequently Asked Questions
A. Alert Level 3 and Level 2 – Service Operating
If your service is open and has children attending every day, you need to:
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Have child and staff daily timesheets for each day as normal
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Mark child and staff daily timesheets with actual attendances and actual worked activities as normal
For any days that your service is open and you expected children to arrive however no children attended, you need to:
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Go to the “Calendar Selection” screen by going to “Centre” and “Calendar”
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Select “August” and “2020”, and click “Modify”
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For the days this applies to, select “Service Open – Holiday period with no attendances” and remove the tick from the “Charge” box if you are not going to charge fees for these days
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Click “Update” once you have made these changes
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Have a child daily sign in sheet for the day and mark all children “Absent”
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Have a staff daily timesheet recording staff activities for the hours that your service would normally operate
B. Alert Level 3 – Service Closed
If your service is closed, you need to:
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Go to the “Calendar Selections” screen by going to “Centre” and “Calendar”
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Select “August” and “2020”, and click “Modify”
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For the days this applies to, select “Emergency close”. The Ministry of Education strongly recommends that you do not charge fees so we recommend that you remove the ‘tick’ from the “Charge” box unless these fees will be covered by your insurance company
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Click “Update” to save these changes
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Have child daily sign in sheets for these days and mark all children as absent by clicking the “Mark all absent” at the bottom of the screen and click “Update” or “Next day” to save the changes and move to the next day
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Staff daily timesheets are only required if you export staff timesheet information into a payroll program
C. Modify Child Daily Sign in Sheets
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To ensure the exemption is applied from 12/08/2020, you need to modify previously created sign in sheets following this procedure:
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Go to the “Sign in Selection” screen and enter the “Effective” date 12th August 2020
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Select the “Category” of the sign in sheet and click “Modify”
NB: You don’t need to make any changes, this is simply to apply the exemption for all permanently enrolled children
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Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Next day”
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Continue through the rest of the days for all sign in sheets currently created
D. Frequently Asked Questions
We understand that there are some very ‘service specific’ enquiries and welcome you to contact us at help@infocaresolutions.co.nz; please read through the following to see if any of your questions can be answered here.
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Our service cannot open during Alert Level 3, what do I do?
Please see point B. Alert Level 3 – Service Closed above
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We are open but we have no children attending, what do I do?
Please see point A. Alert Level 3 and Level 2 – Service Operating above
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We had children that were due to start during, can I claim funding for them?
If you have confirmed a start date for a child and all enrolment documentation is complete, you can claim funding for them from their anticipated start date; the reason being that if it had not been for COVID-19, they would have started, so business as usual.
Although this was previously a strict rule that you couldn’t claim funding beyond the first week of absence when children were unable to start due to unforeseen circumstances; this rule has been waived. Infocare Solutions software has been enhanced to accommodate for this situation. -
I have children turning three during Alert Level 3, can I claim the 20 hours ECE?
Yes, if you have a completed/signed “Confirmation of Enrolment and 20 Hours ECE attestation”
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We have children attending for fewer hours or days than they would normally, do I give them a new timetable?
Our understanding at this point is that no, you do not need to give the child a new timetable as all permanently enrolled children are exempt from the Ministry’s absence rules for the period 12/08/2020 – 30/09/2020. However, please seek clarification from the Ministry of Education support staff as outlined in the Early Learning Bulletin 15th August 2020.
