How to Easily Achieve Excellence in Assessment & Rating
Kindyhub Helps Your Centre Excel at Assessment Time
Assessment time for early learning centres is always frantic. Getting information and reports together can be time consuming and super stressful, whether you are a small early learning centre or a large one. When you have a computerised system such as Kindyhub, much of the information that you need for National Quality Framework Assessment is already at your fingertips. Our program can help you meet the national quality standard and work towards the highest level under the NQF – an exceeding rating.
The ACECQA rating of excellence is ultimately what every early learning centres strive towards and indicates that the centre is continually improving quality and practice, and that outcomes for children and families are constantly being upgraded and improved to the highest level. The exceeding rating is sought by parents, families, centre owners, managers, staff, and prospective staff, of child care centres and kindergartens Australia wide.
Kindyhub brings you a secure, web based system that enhances communication and simplifies your early learning centre’s processes. Organised systems and happy staff, parents, and children will always be a plus to your early learning centre at assessment time. The Kindyhub app allows you to plan, track, communicate, and document easily from the one central location.
Know Your Customers Needs
Parents have been proven to respond quickly to feedback through Kindyhub, allowing your team members to monitor processes and procedures. By sending out regular learning stories, information and surveys often, you will receive constant feedback. This information can include constructive criticism, which makes it easy to bring any concerns of families and staff to light and address them. Using Kindyhub to its potential puts you in a position where you are best able to meet the family’s and the children’s needs.
Demonstrating Progress Over Time
Assessment from ACECQA is always based on demonstrating consistent improvement. Early learning centres that are rated exceeding the national quality standard across all 7 areas can apply for the . Once an Excellent rating is awarded it can be set in place for up to three years if the Kindergarten or child care centre continues to meet ACECQA requirements. After this time eligible early learning centres can reapply.
ACECQA received and processed 17 excellent ratings throughout Australia in 2018. Having an excellent rating takes work, dedication and persistence. Striving to earn one puts your early learning centre streets ahead of the competition. Using Kindyhub, you have all the tools at your fingertips to monitor your progress and work towards this goal.
Continuous Improvement
The focus of ACECQA is on continuous improvement, and Kindyhub is designed with excellence in mind. The program streamlines processes and allows you to monitor children’s development and learning needs. Surveys can easily be sent to parents and associated parties regularly for constructive feedback. What is monitored can be changed and improved upon, and with the Kindyhub App in play, you have the software to do this.
We fully understand the EYLF (Early Years Learning Framework). Kindyhub focuses on each individual child and through the App you can easily see the outcomes that the child has met and those that still need to be addressed. Using Kindyhub ensures that data is captured and matrixed accurately, and educators are mindful of outcomes that need to be satisfied.
Here is what our customers have to say:
“Just received our A&R results back and we received overall EXCEEDING. Super happy but most importantly QA1 and QA6 were credit to Kindyhub as it was flawless in showcasing how we exceed using your program. Many thanks to your team for always helping out with our requests.”
Vicki Skoulogenisat – All 4 kids Kindergarten – Owner
“Our preschool has recently received an NQS rating of Exceeding in all 7 quality areas after our Assessment and Rating in June.
We believe the introduction of Kindyhub software has played a major role in our NQS rating going from Meeting to Exceeding in all 7 quality areas, because everything we do is documented on the Kindyhub platform. During our A&R, we were so relieved to be able to simply show the assessor everything in one central location on Kindyhub, ranging from individual child observations and goals, learning stories, daily journals, communication with families, and show that we are linking it all back to our critical reflection and programming and planning. We also loved being able to show that Kindyhub works in real time and communication and responses between our educators and families is shared instantly, including information about children’s learning and development and how the feedback and suggestions from families are followed up in our program.
We have only just moved to a digital platform this year after 50+ years of paper based documentation and have found that Kindyhub has not only strengthened our communication and relationships with children and families, but also enhanced educator engagement and wellbeing as a direct result of the positive feedback and words of appreciation from families. Kindyhub has made a huge difference to the way that we communicate, program and plan. It has opened up a whole new way of documenting our cycle of learning and communicating with families, so I just wanted to thank you personally and share with you our A&R result, which Kindyhub most definitely contributed to!””
Heidi Patrick, Elanora Heights Community Preschool – Director
Can we include the name and service for each testimonial to give more credibility.
The Quality Assessment Criteria
Here are some ways in which Kindyhub can help your early learning centre with each criteria.
Quality Assessment 1
Educational Program and Practice
The purpose of Quality Area 1 is to ensure that the educational program and practice is stimulating and interesting, that it can engage the children and enhance their learning and development. There are 3 sections of QA 1, which are further broken down into 3 sections each. QA1 focuses on educational practice and programs. It is all about receiving valued feedback from families. This is one of the App’s principal aims.
Kindyhub has proven results when it comes to communication with families, and the software makes it easy to ask for and receive input about the children’s learning. This allows your early learning centre to make changes as needed on an individual basis, and to consistently improve performance.
Staff can easily show the assessor learning stories at assessment time, along with child observation and individual child goals. Staff can demonstrate real time communications between parents and your centre and how comments made by families are followed up on.
“Achieving a quality rating isn’t about doing endless observations, or scrapbooking children’s lives, it’s about collecting and sharing what is important for us and the family to know about the child and developmental journey. It’s about being reflective, and using the knowledge in a way that builds everyone’s capacity and also about using our time in a smart way.”
Neville Dwyer, Dorothy Waide Centre LDC Service, Nominated Supervisor
Quality Assessment 2
Children’s Health and Safety
The children’s environment is assessed to ensure that it promotes and satisfies their safety, health and wellbeing. Safety reports including incidents can easily be accessed from Kindyhub.
Quality Assessment 3
Physical Environment
The environment of the early learning centre is assessed to ensure that it is safe, suitable for children and provides a range of experiences to promote learning and development. Kindyhub provides proof of a safe environment by way of data, images and reports.
Quality Assessment 4
Staffing Arrangements
ACECQA assess the educators for the qualifications and experiences as well as their relationship skills with the children, their ability to create a predictable environment and encourage children’s active engagement in learning.
Staff qualifications, experience, and even performance reviews can be accessed through Kindyhub which can save your centre manager time when preparing for assessment. Having this information easily accessible and improved upon regularly will help you to get further towards the excellence rating.
Quality Assessment 5
Relationships with Children
The relationships between the early learning centre staff and management and the children need to be respectful and responsible while promoting the children’s sense of security and belonging. Video and images of management and staff interactions are available on Kindyhub. Reviewing and improving on any concerns ahead of time will help you with your assessment rating.
Quality Assessment 6
Collaborative partnerships with families and communities.
Kindyhub opens up a whole new way of communicating.
The software is designed with communication and collaboration in mind, and the real time communications are beneficial to the families, the early learning centre and the children. The App enables more meaningful partnerships to be built through the centre. Grandparents and the local community can become involved with the early learning centre and programs.
Feedback and suggestions made by parents in real time can be demonstrably followed up quickly, strengthening communications. At assessment time this is easily shown to the assessor.
“I have found the ‘communicate’ section particularly helpful for sending quick messages to parents throughout the day, instead of trying to get hold of busy families over the phone.”
Katey Street, Billy Kids Lilyfield, Preschool Teacher
“Kindyhub has streamlined our recording processes and frees up educator time to really plan for children’s learning. The families just love the daily data and slide show. We are connecting more with families than ever before. Kindyhub is a great tool – user friendly and great back up support.”
Judy Radich, Cooloon Children’s Centre Inc, Nominated Supervisor, Educational Leader
Quality Assessment 7
Governance and Leadership
Leadership and governance of your early learning centre is assessed in order to establish and maintain a quality environment for the children’s learning and development. Kindyhub software allows you to monitor and improve the leadership and management of your centre through feedback of parents and families, reporting processes, staff training and development data, monitoring and improvement of interpersonal relationships between management, staff, parents, families and children.
Documentation of Children’s Learning
Documenting the learning outcomes and processes of children is one of the most important aspects that needs to be done at early learning centres and kindergartens. Every child is unique and as such their learning methods, development and processes will be different. Learning outcomes and methods need to be shown in detail rather than trying to have a one size fits all strategy. Kindyhub is developed to enhance learning which benefits the children, and the early learning centres.
Having clear documentation on each child makes it easier to communicate with all involved including the children, educators, parents and staff.
Kindyhub App allows your centre to make changes little and often and improve as well as monitor results. These can be documented easily, by way of images as well as data and reports. Every aspect of the children’s learning experience can be reported – how they interact with their friends, adults, their parents and family and their environment. What they are learning about is also documented.
Playing is complex – by using Kindyhub everything can be interconnected and seen by parents and educators alike. All the moving parts join together to form a clear picture. The parents and the staff are happy – and most importantly so are the children. Caring, leadership, play, and development works together with technology to bring you results that are – excellent.
How Kindyhub Can Help at Assessment Time
Every child’s learning plan and outcomes are stored in their individual profiles. It is easy to demonstrate and share information for each individual child. Critical observations along with other vital information area stored in a single, central location. The software is cloud based and ultra secure. Data is easily accessible for parents and staff.
Kindyhub is a clearer, more sustainable way of communicating, and families love that! It makes them want to connect and give feedback which in turn gives your early centre ample tools for progress improvement. The software cuts down on paperwork for the centre and streamlines daily tasks by pulling information into a centralised location. Kindyhub saves your Centre valuable time at assessment time and everything you need for preparation is already stored in the App. Kindyhub allows you to easily put your best foot forward, and present your early learning Centre in the best possible light.
To find out how more about using Kindyhub for excellence, visit www.kindyhub.com.au/excellence.