How Children Learn in Their Early Years

If you have heard that the rules around mobile phones and electronic devices in early childhood settings have changed, you are right. If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, these changes are already in effect.

Here is a plain-English breakdown of what changed, why it happened, and what it means for your family.

Why Did the Laws Change?

The changes were introduced as a child safety measure. In 2025, Australia’s Education Ministers agreed to amend the Education and Care Services National Law to address concerns about the potential for personal devices to be used to capture, store, or transmit images of children in care without authorisation.

The intent is straightforward: children in early learning settings deserve an environment where their privacy and safety are actively protected.

What Changed Nationally

From 27 February 2026, amendments to the national Education and Care Services National Law took effect across Australia. Under these changes, educators and staff who work directly with children are restricted from using personal electronic devices in care settings.

Before this, from 1 September 2025, all early childhood education and care services nationwide were required to have written policies in place addressing the use of digital devices.

What Changed in NSW

NSW moved ahead of the national timeline. The Education and Care Services (Supply, Authorisation and Use of Devices) Order 2025 took effect on 6 November 2025, applying across NSW’s 6,000 or more early learning services, including long day care centres, preschools, and family day care.

Under this order, educators and staff must use service-issued or service-authorised devices rather than their own personal devices when working directly with children.

What Counts as a Personal Device?

The definition is broad. A personal device is any device owned by an individual (not the approved provider) that is capable of capturing, storing, or transmitting an image. This includes:

Mobile phones
Smartwatches
Cameras and tablets
iPads and laptops
Hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards
Wearables such as camera glasses

Who Does the Ban Apply To?

The restrictions apply to anyone working directly with children at a service, including permanent and casual educators, students on placement, volunteers, contractors, and allied health professionals delivering programs on-site.

Parents, carers, and other visitors are not covered by the ban. In NSW, parents and carers remain free to use their personal devices during drop-off, pick-up, centre visits, and events involving their own children. There are also authorised exceptions for essential purposes, including emergencies and health or disability support needs.

What About Screen Time for Children?

These new laws specifically address staff device use, not children’s screen time. Screen time limits for young children are not mandated within childcare regulation at a national level.

The relevant guidance comes from the federal Department of Health and Aged Care’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend no screen time for children under 2 years, and no more than 1 hour per day for children aged 2 to 5 years. These are health guidelines, not regulatory requirements.

What This Means for Your Family

If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, their service is already required to operate under these rules. Any educator or staff member working directly with your child should not be using a personal device to take photos or videos. Only service-authorised devices should be used for that purpose.

If you have questions about how your centre handles digital devices or image capture, you are well within your rights to ask. Most services will have a written policy in place that covers exactly this.

At Clovel, the safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is at the heart of everything we do. If you would like to know more about how we support your child across our centres, we would love to have that conversation with you.

Right from birth, our children learn by exploring and playing in stimulating and safe environments. Their key relationships help them think, learn problem-solving skills, and communication. This learning happens when they actively engage with their environment and trying different activities. Let’s take a detailed look at how children learn in their early years:

Learning During Early Years

When a baby emerges from the mother’s womb, opens its eyes and starts crying, its learning begins as if it is programmed to learn. Its brainpower keeps increasing with constant use. A child learns faster in a conducive environment that offers various ways to play and learn – the more the opportunities to practice, better the learning.

Infants and young children always learn quickly in a warm and stimulating environment, coupled with a loving relationship with their parents, babysitters, and other people they regularly come in contact with. These relationships play a critical role in a child’s learning in their early years. As a parent, you remain the primary teacher for your child and she will keep learning from you over the years.

Different Ways in Which Babies & Young Children Learn

Your child learns through daily social interactions and play; by exploring new things and absorbing experiences in the stimulating environment, you provide. The foundation of a child’s learning and behaviour is laid through evolving relationships with their family and caretakers.

The child develops social skills such as communicating, interacting, thinking, and problem-solving during this rapid phase of healthy learning and development through play as well as interaction with people around them. You play an important role in creating an engaging and supportive environment for your child, and he will learn readily in such an environment. The learning covers:

Making sounds, hearing sounds and singing
Stimulation of the senses through play, eating, seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, and touching.
Observing the surroundings, including people and things.
Experimenting with materials, objects, and textures like water, soil, and dirt
Discovering and learning by handling things, shaking and turning them.
Asking questions.

You will be surprised by the amazing amount of learning your child does on her own. This is reflected in activities such as:

Selecting toys and objects to play with
Choosing a book to read or look at
Looking at pictures in books
Selecting what they want to eat
Picking out foods for meals

Support and Encouragement Matter

It is critical to provide your child with various opportunities and ways to engage in different activities to select, practice, and learn. You can find out what your child’s likes and dislikes are by exposing him to indoor and outdoor as well as structured and unstructured activities.

You play a vital role in supporting his learning. Self-learning plays a crucial role in developing a child’s creative faculties and keeps her interested in what she is doing. Your child needs to learn on her own, even by making mistakes. You should extend support only when she looks to you for support or when you feel she needs some encouragement to take the next step. A few words of encouragement go a long way in building a child’s self-confidence in handling and learning things.

The love and support that your child receives from you and the rest of your family members are what gives her the confidence to interact with people around her. Learning is a constant process, and it also means that your child would need constant support and encouragement to learn and communicate well.

If you want to know more about our baby program at Clovel Childcare and Early Learning Centres, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Just give us a call at 1300 863 986 or fill in this contact us form.

Thanks for reading,
Clovel Childcare
1300 863 986

Lyn Connolly

Founder and Company Director

Lyn Connolly is the Founder and Company Director of Clovel Childcare & Early Learning Centres, a family‑owned group of eight centres across Western Sydney established from her first service at Merrylands. Active in early childhood education since 1977, she also serves as President of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW, representing providers in state and federal consultations, media, and public hearings.

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