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What are National Quality Standard ratings and what do they mean to you?
One of the most frequently asked questions we receive at CareforKids is "What are the National Quality Standard Ratings and what do they mean for parents?"
In January 2012 the new National Quality Framework (NQF) came into effect across Australia. Its purpose is to improve and standardise the quality of child care across all 'formal' types of care through a range of measures, including better staff to child ratios, higher staff qualifications and an assessment and rating system designed to promote continuous improvement.
Under the NQF child care services are assessed and rated against the National Quality Standards (NQS). When the assessment is complete, the child care service receives a "rating" and advice on what areas need improvement.
Put simply these ratings are a new way of measuring the quality of early childhood education and care in Australia. The ratings system covers most long day care, family day care, preschool/kindergarten and outside school hours care (OOSH) services.
Child care services are assessed and rated against the seven quality areas, 18 standards and 58 elements that make up the NQS.
The seven quality areas are as follows (click on the links to learn more)
- Educational program and practice
- Children's health and safety
- Physical environment
- Staffing arrangements
- Relationships with children
- Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
- Leadership and service management
Once your child's service is assessed against these standards it will receive one of the following ratings, and you as a parent may ask the child care provider for their rating and proof of it.
| Rating |
Definition |
| Excellent |
The Excellent rating is the highest possible rating and can only be awarded by ACECQA. Providers with a service rated Exceeding National Quality Standard can choose to apply. |
| Exceeding National Quality Standard |
A service that receives an overall rating of Exceeding will have exceeded the NQS in at least four or more of the seven quality areas, including two of the 'key' areas. |
| Meeting National Quality Standard |
An overall rating of Meeting means that your service has met all of the elements in the NQS and may have exceeded the standards in some quality areas. |
| Working Towards National Quality Standard |
If your service receives an overall rating of Working Towards it means the service has not met at least one of the 58 elements in the NQS. It may have a mix of higher and lower ratings across the seven quality areas.
It may take time for some services to meet each element in these higher standards, which is why the Working Towards rating is important.
Working Towards does not mean that the service has failed to meet any of the requirements that pose a risk to the safety, health or wellbeing of children.
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| Significant Improvement Required |
This rating is given when a service fails to meet requirements in a way that poses an unacceptable risk to the health, wellbeing or safety of children. Services that receive this rating must work with a Regulator to immediately improve their quality otherwise they will have their operating licence withdrawn. |
| Provisional |
A service that is yet been assessed against the National Quality Standard. |
How are services assessed?
Each state and territory has a Regulatory Authority responsible for assessing the quality of your child's service and for investigating complaints. Officers from these Authorities have been trained to observe and make consistent judgements about the quality of care available in the service being assessed.
What about personal reviews and ratings?
There's nothing like word of mouth recommendation when it comes to child care. No matter what official rating a child care centre or family day care receives, parents still like the reassurance of personal recommendation from other parents whose children already attend or have attended that particular service.
CareforKids.com.au child care ratings and reviews also offer parents a valuable and reliable source of information about the experiences other families have had with their child care service. Please make use of our ratings and reviews, both by reading them and posting your own review. These reviews are read by the services themselves and services are given the chance to respond to any criticism. We also monitor the reviews for unsuitable content. Only helpful and genuine reviews will be posted.
Click here to review the latest parent ratings and reviews or share your experiences with other parents by posting a rating here.
A Note on Services Not Covered by the National Quality Framework
Under current legislation not all early childhood education and care providers are covered by the National Quality Framework. These 'Out of Scope' services include some occasional care providers, care offered in holiday resorts, mobile services and many others. For a full list of services not currently covered by the NQF please read ACECQA's publication National Quality Framework: Who is Not Covered. |
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