The Importance Of Imaginative Play For Children

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.

Playing is an integral part of childhood, but imaginative play is critical for the development of a child’s emotional, physical, as well as social skills. Let us see why you should focus on imaginative play for your child.

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that helps hone a child’s critical thinking ability. It enhances resourcefulness as your child begins to form new concepts, ideas, images, and experiences without the need to see or touch.

Importance of Imaginative Play

In imaginative play, children try role-playing and act out experiences that interest them or they have absorbed from their interaction with others. In the process, they practice their social skills and experience new things through seeing, touching, tasting, etc. Children need to engage in imaginative play to absorb those experiences and make sense of the world around them.

Imaginative role play aids a child’s development because it helps them enact what they have seen around them and understood from it. This form of learning pushes the child to cross the boundaries of the real world around him on his own terms and understand the consequences of doing things in a particular way, without coming to any harm.

This becomes a learning process for the child. The play involves confrontations, conflicts, and their resolution in a way the child deems fit. This skill-based learning prepares them for real-world conflicts and induces confidence to navigate through situations in schools, play zones, when they are with their family, and even in social situations, later on as adults.

Ways to Encourage Imaginative Play

While each child has a specific requirement for imaginative play, there are some common ways to encourage this process in children, such as:

#1 Provide Them Props

Props play a crucial role in a child’s imaginative play, and these don’t have to be expensive things or items you need to purchase. Daily use items from the kitchen, work table, and bedrooms attract a child’s imagination and make them feel comfortable in the creative surroundings of their choice. A cardboard box, plastic basket, brooms, stuffed animals, crockery, spaces under the bed are good enough to spark a child’s imagination and help them create a fantasy world.

#2 Encourage Reading

Reading stories to children exposes them to different scenarios, experiences, and places. Alternate this by asking them to make up stories of their own. Regular reading stimulates brain development and encourages them to experience new things and collect more information. It is an effective way to expose them to things that are unknown to them, developing their curiosity a well as empathy for others.

#3 Help Them to Push the Boundaries of Creativity

Children are good at making up stories and playing the role of a character they love. They may like acting like a parent, a doctor, a driver, a teacher, or even a dog. Encourage them to create stories of their own and show interest in participating in the activity.

Keep some stationery and artwork items within easy reach. They may create drawings from their imagination with no counterparts in the real world and that is what imaginative play is all about.

Expose Them to the Outside World

A visit to a zoo, a museum, a forest, botanical garden, or even a supermarket provides children the opportunities to engage in imaginative play and think creatively. These are also the places where they interact with strangers and other children and naturally develop social skills.

If you want to know more about imaginative play for pre-schoolers at Clovel Childcare Early Learning Centre, 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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