Tag: Excellent Rating

To quote the philosopher John Dewey, “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience”.

What worked for your centre this year? An open day? A program that families and children love? And what didn’t work? Did the flyers at the local cafes attract new families? When undertaking planning for 2019, the first step is to reflect on how this year went and how you can improve. In reflective practice, we must focus on what we did, what our objectives were, what was the outcome, and, most importantly, why did we do it.

What is reflective practice in child care?

Let’s get real — if we keep doing the same thing and we’re not seeing the results we want, then we are wasting our time. To move forward and enhance every aspect of your centre, you need to create a culture of learning through reflective practice. This can be applied to everything that you do as a centre, including your programs, experiences, events, strategies, marketing and more. And while we are discussing now in the context of the end of year planning for next year, reflection should be a part of our practice throughout the year.

Reflective practice is as it sounds — reflecting on our daily, weekly, monthly, yearly experiences in early childhood and learning from them.

“When educators strive to assess and understand the impact of their practice, they are engaging in reflective practice. Developing a culture of learning through this reflective practice drives continuous improvement and focuses attention on quality outcomes for children and families.” – ACECQA

Reflective practice should guide our decision making for the future and gives us the best chance of improving the outcomes for children, families, educators and the centre. We encourage an individual approach to reflective practice as well as reflection in group settings as this can foster productive discussion.

Using reflective practice to plan 2019

Here are a few of the most common challenges faced in early childhood and ways we can use reflective practice to better tackle them in 2019:

1. Daily routines and the flow of the day: If you find you and your educators are spending too much time settling children into the next activity despite your best efforts, it’s time to reflect.

Consider your objective: You want children to transition smoothly between activities.

Reflect: You tried using different times of the day for different activities to make it run more efficiently. You thought this could result in the children being more settled. It hasn’t improved.

Plan: In 2019 you will try using dedicated transitional songs, as used in the Bonkers Beat programs. These have been proven to aid the transition and will help your days flow.

2. Low occupancy at your centre: Attracting more families to centres is currently a common challenge. If your occupancy isn’t where you want it to be, let’s discover what you can do to improve it.

Consider your objective: You want to attract more families to enrol at your centre.

Reflect: You put some flyers at local cafes but didn’t get many leads.

Plan: You’ll continue distributing the flyers but at a few more locations and you will work hard at creating a point of difference to make your centre to stand out. (May we suggest the tried and tested Bonkers Beat programs?!)

3. NQS Rating Assessment: You were hoping to be assessed as Exceeding this year but didn’t get there. Understand how you can achieve this goal.

Consider your objective: You want to improve your centre’s NQS Rating and be assessed as Exceeding in 2019.

Reflect: You have put a lot of effort into your documentation but have realised through your assessment report that you need to focus on a few other NQS areas.

Plan: Create a strategy that directly addresses each of the National Quality areas and is integrated into your curriculum so that it becomes an embedded approach for your centre. (Again, we suggest the Bonkers Beat programs for this too!)

Now is the time to start your reflective practice, so encourage everyone in your team to reflect on the year that was and make notes. It’s important to also reflect on things that went well. What was GREAT this year? Can you do it better still? How can it be done next year? Don’t forget, everyone’s thoughts count and reflecting as a group is essential too.

May 2019 be your best year ever. So keep reflecting and planning to achieve greater results in the future.

What makes a centre special and why developing a centre philosophy is of vital importance?  It’s a sum of many things, such as people, culture, values and your mission as an organisation. Together these things make up your centre philosophy. Does your centre have a philosophy? It should!

The Bonkers Beat philosophy grew and developed over a period of time rather than all at once. It began as a simple statement of our values and principles, before growing into our ‘7 Stones’ philosophy that we now share with centres all over the country (and the world). In fact, that ‘7 Stones’ philosophy became one of six overarching achievements for Bonkers Beat Music Kinder in Aspendale receiving the ‘Excellent’ rating from ACECQA.

Special note: If you’re on or around the Gold Coast, check out our ‘7 Stones’ practical early childhood workshop for centre owners and directors on Wednesday 7 November from 9.30am – 1.30pm.

It’s a free event but do register so you don’t miss out!

A centre philosophy is the heart and soul of your service. It gives you, your educators and your families a clear understanding of what your centre stands for and believes in. Let’s explore why your centre needs a philosophy and what it will bring to your service.

Here’s why you should develop a centre philosophy

1. Refine your centre’s vision for everyone

As mentioned above, a philosophy can sharpen your vision. What are you striving to achieve together as a centre? Your philosophy will keep you in check.

2. Ensure educators work in harmony with centre philosophy

If you’re all working with a common goal, you will work together more effectively. A clear philosophy ensures everyone knows what their shared mission is and how they are expected to go about pursuing it.

3. Stand out as a centre

A strong, meaningful philosophy can help families understand what your centre is about and showcase to others what is important to you. Your philosophy becomes a part of your brand and helps you to stand out above the rest. (This has been incredibly true for Bonkers Beat).

4. Enrich your curriculum

Your philosophy isn’t just a piece of paper or some writing in a booklet. It can be actively embedded in your curriculum. The educational programs you choose should work with and enhance your philosophy.

Educators should not only support but enhance, and embrace the centre’s philosophy in everything they do, every day in every practice. And remember, your philosophy as a centre can grow and change with you.

If you’re serious about a meaningful centre philosophy, come along to see how we have developed a childcare centre philosophy that has enriched centres and the lives of educators, parents and children. Discover how the ‘7 Stones’ philosophy has enabled many centres to overcome challenges like occupancy, staff retention and lack of motivation.

This ‘7 Stones’ free workshop takes place next Wednesday, 7 November on Gold Coast, QLD. We’re also taking this event to Sydney in December. This is a rare opportunity to attend a free industry event and network with other dedicated professionals. Perfectly timed ready for you to tackle 2019 with a renewed sense of ambition!

Click here to register now.

 

Engagement is something we frequently talk about in early childhood education. Engaging families, parents, communities, children and engaging our educators. Not only does engagement help you on your centre’s path to an Excellent Rating, but engaged educators are happier, more fulfilled and do their very best work in giving children the best start in life.

One very simple strategy you can use to engage educators in your centre is by keeping alive their passion for early childhood education. How? Industry magazines, article recommendations, participation in industry forums and groups and regular professional development are all perfect to get your educators engaged.

Reading high-quality publications like an Australian Childcare Alliance Queensland’s quarterly magazine – ‘Early Edition’, is a simple way to engage educators on a regular basis. Articles in the latest ‘Early Edition’ include ‘The Magic of Nature Play’, ‘5 Top Tips for Settling Infants’ and ‘Toddlers’ Imaginative Play Project’. Send a link to the publication to your educators and encourage them to have a read and stay excited about their important work.

Early Edition tips for Excellent Rating

There is an article about Bonkers Beat in the latest issue of ‘Early Edition’ where you can discover the strategies on how centres can work towards gaining an Excellent Rating. We share our top four tips in the article – read it here.

As the tips for achieving an Excellent Rating are covered in ‘Early Edition’, we won’t go into great detail here, but if you have been wondering what it takes to reach Excellent Rating, these four tips are an honest insight:

1. Music every single day

Music engages the brain and enhances children’s development. It helps your educators to improve children’s social and emotional skills and overall wellbeing.

2. ‘7 Stones’ Philosophy links to the 7 Quality Areas of the NQF

Over many years we have developed the ‘7 Stones’ Philosophy, with each of these pillars of our philosophy directly connected to a quality area of the NQF.

3. Focus on wellbeing

It’s not a buzzword – wellbeing is crucial for development and we do yoga and meditation every day to improve outcomes for children. Resilience, focus, self-esteem – we achieve so much through our daily wellbeing program and it all ties back to the NQF areas.

4. Educational resources to use at home

The fun of our music and wellbeing programs extends to children’s homes through resources for families, such as music books, CDs, yoga cards. The parental engagement is easily achieved, contributing to a higher NQS Rating, but more importantly to giving children the best start in life.

Keep your educators engaged and excited about early childhood

Continue to encourage educators at your centre to read industry publications, participate in online forums and keep their love of early childhood education alive! You can even challenge educators to discuss things they’ve learned through reading and self-learning, or gather a range of articles each month to share with your team via email or in the staff room.

Head over to ‘Early Edition’s latest issue to read our Excellent Rating tips in depth and get a range of actionable suggestions on how you can work towards improving your NQS Rating at your centre.