Quality improvement plan

B4: Practical assessment 6 – Quality improvement plan

You will then use the information that gathered to develop a Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) for the service.
To do this, you need to:

1. Refer to the Guide to the National Quality Framework and locate the following specific standards:

• Quality Area 1: Standard 1.2 Educators facilitate and extend each child’s learning and development.
• Quality Area 2: Standard 2.1 Each child’s health and physical activity is supported and promoted.
• Quality Area 3: Standard 3.2 The service environment is inclusive, promotes competence and supports exploration and play-based learning.
• Quality Area 4: Standard 4.2 Management, educators and staff are collaborative, respectful and ethical.
• Quality Area 5: Standard 5.2 Each child is supported to build and maintain sensitive and responsive relationships.
• Quality Area 6: Standard 6.1 Respectful relationships with families and are developed and maintained and families are supported in their parenting role.
• Quality Area 7: Standard 7.1 Governance supports the operation of a quality service.

2. Select two (2) of these standards. You will use these standards as a basis for your self-assessment.
3. Collect information from the service to assist you in analysing its compliance against the two (2)Standards. For example, you might like to gather relevant policies and procedures and check whether these have been followed correctly through discussions with your room leader/director and/or other educators from your placement organisation.

HINT: Keep a record of all information you collect as you will need to record this as evidence.

4. Organise a phone call/meeting with a room leader/educational leader/director from the service to discuss and share ideas about your its performance against thetwo (2) Standards, in particular, the service’s strengths and improvements that could be made to better meet each Standard.

HINT: The Guide to the National Quality Framework has a section under each standard called ‘Questions to guide reflection on practice’. Use these questions to help you with your discussions.

NOTE: Ensure you document the discussions you have with the room leader/educational leader/director (including names, dates and times) as you will need to submit these as evidence.

5. Agree on a minimum of five (5)strengths and three (3) improvements for each standard with the room leader/educational leader/director.
6. Access and complete the Self-Assessment template provided below. You must include the following information in each Self-Assessment:

• Quality Area – input the Quality Area number and name and summarise in your own words the focus of this Quality Area.
• Standard – input the standard number and name and summarise in your own words what the Standard is about.
• Elements – List the elements relevant to the standard – for example, if you chose Standard 1.2 you would need to add in the information relating to Elements 1.2.1 to 1.2.3.
• List the information you collected from staff, children, families, and the community to inform your assessment against the standards and elements.

HINT: You will need to fill in two (2) Self-Assessment templates (one for each standard).

7. Access the February 2018 QIP template from the ACECQA website. This Microsoft Word template will provide you with a section to record a Summary of strengths andan Improvement plan for each of the seven (7) Quality Areas. You will only need to fill in a QIP for two (2) of the seven (7) Quality Areas so it is recommended that you delete the sections you will not need.
8. Complete the QIP for each of thetwo (2) standards with the following information:

• Summary of strengths (minimum of five)
• The Standard/Element number
• The identified issues/improvement areas (minimum of three)
• The outcomes that you are seeking
• The priority of each goal/outcome: Low, medium or high (L, M or H).
• How each outcome will be achieved, i.e. the steps needed for each improvement outcome
• How the success of the strategy will be measured
• Timelines to achieve the improvements.

9. Once you have finished the QIP for the two (2)standards, check it for accuracy and completeness before asking the room leader/educational leader/director to review it and provide feedback. Ensure you document the feedback you receive as you will need to submit it as evidence.

How long it should take

This assessment should take around 2 weeks to complete.

Resources you’ll need

In order to complete this project you will need to have access to:

• Core document: Guide to the National Quality Framework 
• Template: Self-assessment
• External resource: ACECQA Quality Improvement Plans (select the February 2018 version)
  • http://www.acecqa.gov.au/quality-improvement-plan_1
• Your workplace/placement organisation’s policies and procedures
• Room leader/educational leader/director (for discussions and feedback on the QIP).

What you’re required to submit

To achieve a satisfactory result for this assessment, you will need to submit the following evidence to the standards specified in the instructions:

• Documentation of discussions with the room leader/educational leader/director on the services strengths and improvements in the standards
• Two (2) completed Self-Assessments
• Two (2) completed ACECQA Quality Improvement Plans
• Feedback from room leader/educational leader/director on the QIP.