Still lawful, on notice. Regulation 123 in the reprint current as at 12 August 2026 calculates the minimum number of educators by reference to the children at the service, with no room-by-room requirement, so a service-wide (under the roof) calculation remains permitted. In February 2026 Education Ministers accepted ACECQA’s rapid assessment of ratio practices and agreed to remove the across-the-service approach and to define adequate supervision more clearly. The amending regulation and its commencement date had not been published when this page was checked. Regulators are already treating supervision gaps produced by service-wide counting as breaches of section 165 and Element 2.2.1. We will update this page when the amendment is made.
The phrase under the roof does not appear in the National Law or the Regulations. It is the sector’s name for calculating the educator to child ratio across the whole service rather than room by room. This page explains what the Regulations actually say, why the practice is being removed, what regulators look for in the meantime, and how to roster so the change does not catch you out.
Regulation 123(1) sets the minimum number of educators required to educate and care for children at a centre-based service, calculated by age band. Regulation 123(2) requires that minimum to be met at all times for mixed ages. Neither subregulation mentions rooms, so when the fractions for each age band are added across every child in attendance and rounded up once, the result is the service-wide minimum. Room by room, each room’s fraction is rounded up separately, which usually requires more educators.
Regulation 122 then limits who can be counted: only educators working directly with children, meaning physically present with children and directly engaged in providing education and care (regulation 13). Section 165 of the National Law separately requires children to be adequately supervised at all times, and section 167 requires every reasonable precaution to protect children from harm and hazard.
Three rooms on the national bands: Room A has 7 babies (7/4 = 1.75), Room B has 9 toddlers over 2 (9/5 = 1.8), Room C has 20 preschoolers (20/11 = 1.82). Room by room, that is 2 + 2 + 2 = 6 educators. Across the service, 1.75 + 1.8 + 1.82 = 5.37, rounded up to 6. Now move 2 preschoolers into Room B as a mixed group: Room B becomes 9/5 + 2/11 = 1.98 and Room C 18/11 = 1.64; room by room still needs 2 + 2 + 2 = 6, across the service 1.75 + 1.98 + 1.64 = 5.37, still 6. But with 6 babies instead of 7 the service-wide total drops to 5.12, which rounds to 6 room by room but only 6 versus 6 here; take one more baby away and the service-wide figure is 4.87, so 5 educators satisfy regulation 123 while three rooms are open. That fifth educator has to be physically in one room, and the other two rooms each have one educator who cannot leave. That is the gap ACECQA’s assessment identified.
Calculating the educator to child ratio across every child in attendance at the service, adding the fractional educators required for each age band and rounding up once, rather than rounding up for each room separately. It usually produces a lower minimum than a room-by-room calculation.
As at the National Regulations reprint current at 12 August 2026, yes: regulation 123 calculates the minimum by reference to children at the service and contains no room-by-room requirement. Education Ministers agreed in February 2026 to remove the across-the-service approach; the amending regulation had not been published when this page was checked. Adequate supervision in every space is required at all times regardless, under section 165 of the Law.
No. Under the roof is about how the arithmetic is done across rooms. Regulation 122 separately says only educators working directly with children can be counted at all, so an educator on a break, in the office or in the kitchen is excluded from either calculation, except under the rest-pause and short-absence provisions in Queensland (r 299F to 299H), South Australia (r 325A) and Tasmania (r 342A).
Yes. Meeting regulation 123 is a staffing minimum. Section 165 requires children to be adequately supervised at all times, and a room left with one educator for a group that needs two is routinely found to breach it, even where the service-wide total is met. This is the pattern ACECQA’s rapid assessment identified.
Roster room by room, keep records that show where floating educators were, cover breaks with a relief educator in the room, and write the approach into the staffing policy and the QIP. Services that already operate this way will not need to change when the Regulations do.
The calculator shows the room-by-room and across-the-service figures side by side, with the regulation and your state’s setting cited.
14-day free trial, no card →This page is a research summary, not legal or compliance advice. Element and regulation wording is reproduced from the current reprint of the National Regulations; confirm the position with your regulatory authority before relying on it for a compliance decision.