Yes I agree that there are those who can manage 9 or more children safely for sure there is definitely 'skill' involved .... in centre care when we were allowed to have 2/3 ratio during arrival and departure we would have up to 12 two-three year olds on our own ... I managed fine because I am organized, thrive with multi tasking and have good group control of my crew ... but I had peers who while 'allowed' to do this as well under those rules it was so not ideal because anytime they were on the shift where this was allowed children ended up injured or 'wandering off' on them and being 'unsupervised' or aka technically 'lost' from the group but thankfully still contained within the centre .... these staff due to liability of the centre than just not allowed to be on the open or closing shift and put on a middle shift where they were never 'alone' with children .... but had they not had someone overseeing them they would have just continued on with their practice because they did not see anything 'wrong' with what they were doing and consider it 'normal' for children to be hurt daily cause 'kids are kids' and they did not see anything wrong with the kid having wondered away cause they would have' noticed eventually' and so forth ... it is people like that who 'scare me' working in unregulated settings that would allow the 'provider' to choose how many children they could safely manage

I also can reflect back and realize that while I 'managed' with up to 12 children during those two hours of open or close in centre care it was not ideal early learning going on in the time frame ~ it was assembly line care with limited individual exploration because I just could not supervise ... basically children were 'engaged' at table activities or group activities in order to keep that controlled safe environment there was not a lot of true 'free play' going on and so forth.