The National Quality Framework (NQF) is designed to help those working in childcare centres understand and apply the requirements of the Australian standards. This also helps the parents and carers assess the quality of the childcare centre they are looking to enrol their little ones in, as part of their overall research to find the best local childcare centre and education providers.
When a childcare centre meets or exceeds the exceeding standards, this means its ongoing practice and operations are of particularly high standards. This is because it is an ongoing analysis that goes beyond evaluation and review by relevant authorities. We are proud that many of our childcare centres have been rated exceeding NQS including Bondi, Killara and Brookvale.
There are 7 quality areas that the NQS include. For an early learning centre to be rated Exceeding NQS overall, all quality areas must be at least Meeting NQS, and four or more Quality Areas must be Exceeding NQS, with at least two of these being Quality Areas 1, 5, 6 or 7.
Quality Area 1 – Educational program and practice
Quality Area 2 – Children’s health and safety
Quality Area 3 – Physical environment
Quality Area 4 – Staffing arrangements
Quality Area 5 – Relationships with children
Quality Area 6 – Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
Quality Area 7 – Governance and leadership
This quality area focuses on the educational program, ensuring it empowers children and enhances their learning and development skills. It is the responsibility of childcare educators to work on developing each child’s skills. This should be implemented based on a plan to be executed by those working at the early learning centres.
Children require support to their health any physical activity while being in a protected environment to ensure their safety.
Quality childcare centres should be designed to ensure it will be appropriate for the children to enjoy a playful, educational, and fun environment that is safe, inclusive and promotes competence.
Childcare educators and staff play a critical role in children’s learning and development. Dealing with a professional childcare centre means that the management, educators, and staff are working towards the same goal in a collaborative, respectful and ethical manner.
Building a strong, equitable and respectful relationship between educators and each child is important to support their development. This is also important for relationships between children to ensure each child is empowered to build and maintain sensitive and responsive relationships.
Building supportive relationships with the little ones’ families is an important aspect that is sometimes overlooked. Childcare educators should work on developing and maintaining those relationships to help support families in their parenting role. This collaboration helps enhance children’s inclusion, learning and wellbeing.
Governance should support the operation of quality service. When you deal with a childcare centre that is exceeding NQS, you can trust that the leaders are working on building and promoting a positive organisational culture and professional learning community.
At Little Zak’s Academy, we endeavour to give each child the best possible start in their lives. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate a few of our centres who have been rated EXCEEDING the national quality standards including our centres in Bondi Junction, Killara and Brookvale.
