Is It Time to Rethink Non‑Contact Time in Sessional Kinders?
If you work in sessional kindergarten, you’ve probably felt the pinch: non‑contact time is so limited, stretched thin, and often swallowed by paperwork, setup, or after‑hours tasks. We often hear how “non‑contact” is supposed to give educators breathing space. But what we rarely hear is just how unrealistic the expectations are, especially for co‑educators and diploma‑qualified educators, or those with very few hours in the week. This post looks at what “non‑contact time” should do, what it's actually doing, and how service leaders and VECTEA could do better. It’s about retention, wellbeing, and making sure that support matches the load.
What Non‑Contact Time Is Supposed to Do
“Non‑contact time” refers to time that staff aren’t supervising or teaching children directly. It’s allocated for:
Planning programs, artwork, learning documentation
Reflection and collegial discussions
Meeting regulatory compliance (incidents, safety, learning reviews)
Mentoring/professional support
Team meetings, training, professional learning
The idea is that this time helps quality, supports educators’ wellbeing, and improves outcomes for children.
Why It’s Not Enough in Reality
These are some of the mismatches happening in sessional kinders:
The non‑contact time given isn’t enough to cover all those duties. Many educators finish work worrying about what they didn’t manage, taking work home.
Often, non‑contact time is squeezed into short windows, or after children’s program hours, which reduces its usefulness.
Sometimes the requirement to do set‑ups, pack‑ups, documentation, mentoring, family engagement etc., isn’t accounted for in the non‑contact allocated time.
Co‑educators and diploma educators often get fewer hours, fewer “extras” like mentoring or leadership, so their non‑contact time is proportionally very small (or fragmented).
The Wellbeing, Burnout & Retention Costs
When non‑contact time is too little:
Educators end up working unpaid hours (at home, evenings etc.) just to finish documentation or prepare lessons and resources.
Leads to burnout, stress, lower job satisfaction.
Makes retention harder. Why stay in a job that never gives you space to breathe? Especially when you have minimal opportunity for advancement.
Also: many diploma‑qualified educators are working part‑time, with irregular hours, which makes organising any consistent non‑contact time harder, their workload is unpredictable but still heavy in preparation/cleanup/observation duties etc.
Considering VECTEA Provisions on Contact and Non-Contact Time
Under the VECTEA 2020, there are explicit clauses outlining how contact and non-contact time should be allocated for educators:
Full-time teachers have a maximum of 25.5 face-to-face teaching hours per week and at least 12.5 hours of non-teaching duties. For every hour of teaching, they are entitled to 30 minutes of non-contact time.
Non-teaching duties include planning, preparation, assessment, documentation, meetings, family and community engagement, and leadership tasks.
Non-contact time must be allocated formally in rosters, ideally shared between co-teachers to allow for joint planning.
Where non-contact time is interrupted by regulatory work or other duties, educators are entitled to equivalent compensatory time or additional payment.
For casual teachers, non-contact time is proportionally allocated, ensuring fairness relative to hours worked.
Despite these provisions, in practice, many sessional kindergarten educators find their non-contact time squeezed or undervalued, with tasks bleeding into unpaid hours or outside scheduled time.
The Changing Landscape: More Hours, Longer Sessions, and Growing Complexity
Since the VECTEA 2020 agreement was established, the expansion of kindergarten to 15 hours per week and the standardisation of 7.5-hour long sessions have dramatically changed the realities of teaching in sessional settings. What used to be shorter, more contained sessions are now longer and more demanding, increasing the workload both on and off the floor.
This shift means the traditional structure, where nominated supervisors are often required to split time between administrative leadership and direct teaching duties, is no longer sustainable. It is time to consider the standard employment of nominated supervisors as entirely off-the-floor roles, allowing them to focus fully on leadership, compliance, and supporting educators without the competing demands of classroom contact hours. Similarly, the introduction of roles akin to an assistant nominated supervisor would help share these leadership and organisational responsibilities, creating clearer pathways for progression.
Furthermore, especially in larger kindergartens that enrol hundreds of children each year, employing dedicated administrative staff to manage enrolments, communications, and office duties is essential. These roles would relieve educators and leadership from tasks that eat into precious non-contact time, freeing educators to focus on what they do best: educating children. Recognising and adapting to these changes is critical for protecting educators’ non-contact time and supporting their wellbeing and retention in a rapidly evolving sector.
What Could Be Done Differently
If we want to retain skilled educators in sessional kindergartens, and support their wellbeing, non-contact time needs to be reimagined as core, not optional. Here’s what service leaders, VECTEA negotiators, and employers should be advocating for:
1. Recognise set-up and pack-up time as distinct from non-contact time
Let’s be clear: setting up and packing down a session is not non-contact time. It’s an operational requirement, and it should be recognised as its own part of the roster. No primary or secondary teacher would have their relief from face-to-face time (RFF) taken up with setting up a playground or packing up furniture, so why should early childhood teachers? Expecting educators to squeeze planning and documentation into time used for physical labour is unfair, and disrespectful of the complexity of the role.
2. Acknowledge the real-world constraints on scheduling
Many services run 7.5-hour-long sessions, leaving very little buffer either side for educators to complete documentation or meet regulatory requirements. Some employers hesitate to roster educators beyond this because it triggers a $15.48 meal allowance under the current agreement. But these cost-saving measures come at a price: educators are pushed to complete non-contact work at home, often unpaid. Any reform must account for the way long sessions shape what’s possible, and make sure educators aren’t penalised for simply doing their job well.
3. Allow flexible non-contact arrangements, including work-from-home options
Sometimes the best place for reflective, focused work is away from the noise and pace of a service. Work-from-home arrangements for non-contact time, where appropriate, should be on the table, especially for documentation, professional learning, or compliance admin. Trusting educators to manage some tasks remotely can improve both efficiency and morale.
4. Guarantee minimum non-contact allocations, proportionate to contact hours
Educators working 15 contact hours should have at least 3-4 hours of protected non-contact time per week that does not include session set up and pack times. This could be standardised in VECTEA by role type or hours of contact on a scale that considers both contact hours and class size, so educators aren't left negotiating for basic planning time.
5. Improve allowances for Educational Leaders and Nominated Supervisors
If we expect leaders to absorb the gravity of these roles, including compliance, mentoring, curriculum leadership, and in many cases family liaison and enrolments, then it must be reflected in substantially increased allowances. Right now, a teacher under the Award may be better compensated for the same responsibilities than one working under VECTEA. That’s not sustainable or fair.
6. Create real pathways for career progression, not just more responsibility
The reality for many educators in sessional kinders is stagnation: once you become a teacher, the only "progression" might be taking on Educational Leader or Nominated Supervisor roles, often with minimal support, additional pay, or training.
We need new roles that recognise different strengths (e.g. curriculum, mentoring, compliance, community partnerships), as well as structured professional pathways that lead into leadership, management, or system roles, ideally with funded study or time release attached. Without this, we risk losing great educators simply because there’s nowhere left to grow.
Rethinking Non‑Contact Time is Core to Retention
Non‑contact time isn’t just a nice add‑on. For sessional kinder educators, it’s a matter of whether the job is sustainable. Without enough space built into the work to plan, reflect, connect, and manage the unseen parts of teaching, we don’t just risk burnout, we risk losing talented people. It’s time to rethink how non‑contact time is allocated, scheduled, valued, and tied to fair pay, respect, and genuine career paths.