COVID safe practices in early childhood education

Parents and staff can take simple steps to minimise COVID-19 transmission in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services.

Help keep our ECE community safe

To help reduce the risk of catching and spreading COVID-19:

stay home if you are unwell
consider testing if you have symptoms of influenza or COVID-19 (runny nose, sore throat, cough and fever) and are at greater risk of serious illness
stay up to date with recommended vaccinations
wear a mask in crowded, indoor places, to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Families should work with staff at their child’s service to discuss the health and safety precautions in place as well as their family's individual needs.

Check the latest health advice about COVID-19.

Positive cases in ECE

You don’t have to self-isolate if you have COVID-19, but NSW Health strongly recommend you stay home to protect others.

If you test positive to COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19, follow NSW Health’s advice on Testing and what to do if you have COVID-19.

Your child’s centre can’t tell you every time a child or staff member gets COVID. However, they will notify you of results which could be of concern to you and your family .

Your centre will be able to provide more information on their specific policies and procedures around testing and managing illness.

Information for service providers

Services should notify the department through the National Quality Agenda IT System (NQAITS) if there is an outbreak of COVID in the service (5 or more cases within a 7-day period) or if the service is closed due to the impacts of COVID-19.

If you're notified of a positive case in your service:

If this is part of an outbreak of COVID (5 cases or more within a 7-day period) or you need to close the service and you:
- haven’t lodged a notification in the previous 7 days, lodge a notification in NQAITS
- have lodged a notification in the previous 7 days, keep a record of all cases and upload this as additional documentation to the original notification in NQAITS.
Determine infectious period of positive case (48 hours prior to positive COVID test or from the onset of symptoms, whichever is earlier).
Determine which children were in attendance with the case during their infectious period.
Send the parent or authorised emergency contact of each child in attendance the risk of COVID-19 letter (DOCX, 40KB) and refer them to the Advice for people exposed to COVID-19.
Thoroughly clean your service, using your normal cleaning process.

To lodge an incident notification in NQAITS, follow the instructions in the how to guide (PDF, 543KB).

Managing illness

Staff and children should stay home and not attend early childhood education and care services if unwell.

Services and parents should check COVID-19 symptoms and how it spreads. Conjunctivitis (eye infection) has also been reported as a symptom of COVID-19.

If your child becomes unwell at an early childhood education and care service, their educators will contact you to collect them as soon as possible.

If any adults in your household are unwell, please do not take your children to an ECEC service as you may spread COVID-19 at the service.