We hear from NDNA’s Fiona Bland on what quality practice looks like…
Defining quality in early years can be a challenge. ‘What quality looks like’ can be a very individual concept based on a person’s pedagogy, experience, training and other personal viewpoints. As a team, you can create your own shared vision for what quality looks like.
Meet as a team to discuss your vision/ethos. Determine quality based on related research, curriculum documents, statutory documents, staff knowledge and experience of the children you all work with.
You may want to start with small steps and consider one area of practice, such as language development with babies. Reflect on what quality practice might look like for this aspect of practice. Once you’ve determined what constitutes quality practice in the area you are monitoring, you can identify the evaluation resources you can use.
Involving the whole team in the process of defining what quality is will:
We know that a child’s earliest years are the most formative. It’s the time their brains are growing and developing billions of new connections.
There’s a range of available research, such as EPPE or EPPSE and SEED, that tell us that high-quality provision is critical for good outcomes for children.
The Early Intervention: the next steps report (2011) found that a child’s development score at just 22 months can serve as an accurate predictor of their educational outcomes when they reach 26 years of age. This demonstrating the incredible importance of a child’s earliest years.
Having this research data confirms that effective, quality practice is important. It also confirms that it’s every child’s right to experience high-quality early years provision
When we measure quality practice, it’s much more than a snapshot in time or a visit by a regulatory inspection body.
Quality practice needs to be measured in a range of ways and times. This is to ensure you get a true evaluation of all aspects of practice. Tools you may use to measure quality:
Using a range of tools to measure quality practice will provide you with a more holistic approach to all the different elements.
Reflective practice is a critical component of developing quality practice in early years.
With any tool that you use to measure quality, you must evaluate the impact of what you have observed/measured to identify the impact on positive outcomes for children.
If you cannot identify a positive impact, you will need to reflect on why this is. What else might you do to bring about a positive change? High-quality practice and evaluation is an ongoing process and should form part of your everyday practice.
In addition to practitioners’ skills, competencies and perceptions, you also need to have a realistic and honest approach to assessing quality. Being able to be a critical evaluator and providing constructive feedback is essential to developing practice.
Ensure that you link your quality practice evaluations to your action plans, supervisions and business plan. This is so that your action plan is not looked at in isolation, but is integrated into your everyday practice documents.
Alongside your physical space, a quality learning environment has:
This list could go on and each person may be able to add elements of their own pedagogy. It’s about creating a stimulating and playful environment, both indoors and outside, where children feel safe and comfortable to:
Crucially they should be supported by knowledgeable practitioners who understand how to encourage playful learning and development.
Quality practice should be inclusive, with children’s individual needs at the heart of everything your setting does. Practitioners and children should share and celebrate similarities and differences within their setting, local communities and wider society in which they live.
Parents and families are as unique as the individual children in your setting. Parents come into an early years setting with a wide range of experiences, skills, views and attitudes, confidence and knowledge.
It’s vital that you have a range of strategies that enable parents to become part of your nursery life. This includes sharing the knowledge they have about their child.
Through working with parents and other relevant professionals, you can establish cohesive and complementary ways to support children’s progress at home and in the setting.
You should have high expectations for all children to develop to their full potential. You should also provide interactions that encourage and extend children’s ideas, thinking, communication and language development.
Observation, assessment and planning must be purposeful and age or stage-appropriate. It should reflect the journey each child has made and support each child’s future development and learning. Ensure a clear understanding of your role in supporting children and families to make healthy and safe choices in life.
These include promoting a balanced diet for children following appropriate nutritional guidelines and a commitment to promoting children’s physical development, minimising sedentary behaviour.
Leading on quality practice involves leaders and managers using research, reflection and evaluation to develop a sustainable business. This should be underpinned by sound policies, practices and procedures.
Good leaders promote an ongoing drive for quality practice, underpinned by a good sense of self-awareness, self-evaluation and reflection.
Leaders have a clear vision for the future, with aims, objectives and plans in place to achieve these. They monitor outcomes for children to ensure that all children are making good progress. They identify any gaps in development early so staff can action support plans.
Supervision and performance management arrangements are part of the process of monitoring quality practice. These provide staff with professional discussion opportunities to reflect on their roles and responsibilities, identify training needs, support staff wellbeing and celebrate successes.
Recognising and acknowledging staff achievements are critical elements of motivating staff to continue striving for excellence.
NDNA’s Quality Counts accreditation provides a holistic approach to evaluating your practice through four detailed audits and an external accreditation visit. Read more at qualitycounts.org.uk.
