When the team at CareforKids.com.au asked me to give my opinion on the implementation of the National Quality Framework and the assessments and ratings process from the perspective of a centre director, whose centre is yet to be rated, I jumped at the chance.

I am a great believer in constant reflection on practices and performance. My business partner and I opened the doors of Platinum Pre School in 2010, and being primary school teachers, looking for suitable pre schools for our own daughters, we were motivated to create an environment with a strong focus on education and school readiness in the early years.

Platinum is a centre, with a clear understanding of the social, emotional and academic skills that children need to successfully transition into the primary school world. We endeavor to balance these essential skills to develop a love of learning in the formative years of our students. Starting with 13 children on opening in 2010, we now have two centres (a 70 place and 40 place) with over 1,300 children on our waiting list.

We take an approach to early education that is different to the centres around us. This does not mean that the foundations and values of our approach is any better or worse than the other 5,800 long day care services across Australia¹. However, it is unquestionable that an industry as large as ours, with such a huge responsibility to the future generations of Australia must be measured, must be meeting certain minimum standards, and most of all, must be constantly reflecting on our principles and practices.

The industry changes that have taken place since the implementation of the NQF and NQS have been extensive and continue to cause a huge amount of debate. The work involved in ensuring that centres meet the new requirements has been considerable, but I honestly believe that children are benefiting from the new requirements, especially in the areas of education, general wellbeing and safety. And although implementing these changes has required a lot of hard work by our team, I can honestly say with absolute certainty that our love, care and time for our students has not at all been compromised by participating in the changes.

In fact, what we have learnt so far has helped us to improve our practices and has added to our understanding of what our students need in order to become well rounded individuals, ready for their transition into primary school. It is all too easy to become complacent in your approaches and I believe the critical reflection that the change has encouraged, is bringing new lifeblood to the industry.

No longer is early childhood education and care considered the low paid women's work that it was in the past. It is now a multimillion dollar industry supporting hundreds of thousands of workers, parents and children across Australia. So it baffles me to think that there are people out there that have the opinion that we shouldn't constantly be implementing and improving upon regulations and requirements designed to exceed those that have come before.

It is true that there needs to be more public expenditure on early childhood education and care in Australia to support these improved requirements. With the current expenditure being only 0.36 per cent of our GDP we don't even come close to meeting the international benchmark of a minimum of 1 per cent GDP². However, initiatives like the recent $300 million Early Years Quality Fund³ are signs that the Government is willing to put its money where its mouth is.

We therefore have a continued duty of care as educators to give children every opportunity to grow and thrive, and the reality is, the architects of NQF and NQS have created a platform that is extremely well researched and reaches out to educators in a considered and well rounded system of principles and practices that provide room for the varying values, beliefs and backgrounds of different centres.

In regards to the ratings system, I truly believe that centres should be opened each day and look and feel as if they were being rated. By doing this and demonstrating constant respect for ourselves, we are thereby teaching our children about the importance of quality and expectations. I believe that the seven quality areas are all essential and should be rated, however I believe that a centre's rating should be an average of these seven areas, or ratings in all quality areas should be published, not purely an overall rating.

As a parent, my needs for a child care centre may differ to others. As an owner of a centre I hope that when we are assessed, the authorised officer is open minded and not too focused on their own beliefs on what a centre should look and feel like. They should be open to the idea that the standards and elements can be interpreted in many ways and therefore assessors need to be prepared for alternate ways in which the guidelines have been interpreted and implemented.

Early childhood education is changing and children are coming to us more worldly and intuitive. Amongst our many duties we must gently increase the amount of structure and intentional teaching in their day to help prepare them for their next step into a primary school environment. This also includes giving them access to information and ideas about their world. Yes, children should be given a choice of agency, and we do that each day. However, I believe we also need to recognise them as members of our community who's Belonging, Being and Becoming must be adapted as they grow in a direction that not only covers all areas of their development, but also prepares them for a society that they understand and feel comfortable enough to become their own person within.

The proof is in the pudding: our children are happy, healthy and eager to learn about every aspect of their world. The NQF and NQS give educators and children a platform for direction to grow and make the most of their enthusiasm, developing it into a sense of purpose for them to live by.

I can say without reservation that the NQF and NQS provides extremely useful outcome based tools for ECEC (early childhood education and care) providers, which will bring Australian standards of early education up to where they should be. With continued improvements to State and National Government support, as a country we can significantly improve upon our embarrassing quality rank of 28th in the world⁴. It's time for the industry and regulatory authorities to stop fighting each other and pull together to reach beyond a standard of 'Working Towards International Quality Standard', so Australia, as a country, can be proud to say that we are exceeding those standards and providing the best start in life for our future generations.

Platinum Pre School

References

1. State of Child Care in Australia
2. Info for the community | The first 5 years last a lifetime
3. Early Years Quality Fund | Department of Education, Employment
4. Professor Kagan Consults on Landmark Report Ranking Quality of .Early Childhood Education in 45 countries