Why the quality of child care is important
The experiences your child has in the first three years of her life form the foundations of learning, development and wellbeing for the rest of her life. Children need relationships that help them feel safe and secure, and that encourage them to develop and use their skills.
High-quality child care is built on strong, warm and respectful relationships and communication – between children, parents and staff. This means child care can be an important part of the relationships that support your child’s development.
If you use a child care setting, it’s important to consider the quality of the service. If a high-quality setting is part of your child’s life during these early years, it will have a role in laying strong foundations and building loving relationships.
Not everyone uses child care services, and that’s OK. Your child has the same opportunities to develop strong foundations for learning, development and wellbeing outside of these settings – as long as he has a safe, supportive and loving environment in which to develop. This could be with parents, grandparents, or someone you trust, such as a friend or nanny.
According to research, it’s best to concentrate on the quality of care
that you choose for your child, and how well this type of care fits in
with your family values and interests.
Benefits of high-quality child care
Research has found that high-quality child care can be good for your child in several ways. It will give your child opportunities to learn and achieve. It’ll also help her develop language, maths, motor, social and life skills.
High-quality child care can decrease behaviour problems in children and help to improve the way they get on with each other.
Good-quality child care can have other benefits for your child. For example, early childhood educators are trained to deliver early childhood education programs and have knowledge about child development. Their experienced eyes might pick up potential developmental problems in children.
Parenting can be a tough job. Sometimes another point of view or opinion from an early childhood educator who knows and cares for your child can be a real bonus.
Child care can be stressful for some children. Child care settings are different from home, children have to get on with other children and grown-ups, and mum and dad aren’t around to help. But recent Australian research shows that high-quality child care can actually decrease stress levels in children and help them learn.
Australian early childhood education and care standards
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA)
oversees the quality of early childhood education and care throughout
Australia.
Early childhood education and care refers to services such as child care
centres, kindergartens, early learning centres, family day care, and
child and family centres.
All early childhood education and care services across Australia are now rated and assessed against the National Quality Standard (NQS). Child care services are rated on the quality of their service and must display their rating and approval status. This helps each service keep improving its standards. It also helps you compare services.
Under the NQS, child care services must meet standards in the following areas.
Educational program and practice
All services must support children’s learning and development. Although every service will do this differently, your service should be able to tell you how it plans activities and experiences to help your child develop and learn.
Children’s health and safety
All services must make sure that the environment they provide for your child is safe, clean and properly supervised. They must also promote healthy eating, personal hygiene and physical activity and help teach children about emotions and social relationships. All these things are vital for children’s wellbeing and self-confidence.
Physical environment
The service must be organised and designed so your child can have the best experiences indoors and outdoors. Furniture, activity areas and other resources must be designed so children can play and learn in an environment that’s both safe and stimulating.
Staffing arrangements
Fewer children per educator means better quality of care. This is particularly important for babies and toddlers. The NQF is phasing in these new educator-to-child ratios over the next few years:
- for children aged 0-2 years, the NQF says there should be one educator to every four children (from January 2012)
- for children aged 2-3 years, there should be one educator to every five children (from January 2016)
- for children over three, there should be one educator to every 11 children (from January 2016).
From 2014, educators must have the right training and qualifications – or at least be working towards obtaining them – for working in the early childhood education and care sector. There’s been a lot of research to show that having
more highly qualified educators improves outcomes for children, because these educators have a greater understanding of child development, health and safety issues and can help children learn and develop through a range of games and activities.
Research indicates that specialised staff training and qualifications
and small educator-to-child ratios for children under three produce
better outcomes in transition to school, language comprehension, social
behaviour and cognitive development.
Relationships with children
All children need to know that other people care about them and are interested in what they do, think and feel. Child care services should develop responsive, warm, trusting and respectful relationships with children in order to promote children’s wellbeing, self-esteem and sense of security.
You should be able to see good relationships between adults and children, as well as between the people who work at the service. For example, educators should speak to children, families and each other politely and respectfully, and the general ‘feel’ of the service should be welcoming and friendly.
Working together with families and communities
The service should build and maintain respectful and supportive relationships with families and caregivers. Your parenting role, values and beliefs must be respected by the service. The service must work with you to make decisions about your child’s learning and wellbeing. Services must also work with other organisations and professionals to boost your child’s learning and wellbeing.
Leadership and service management
Child care services must give you information about any management decisions that will affect you and your child. There must be procedures in place for managing any problems or complaints you might have. Child care services must also be committed to improving their programs and building a positive learning culture.
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Starting child care can be a big and challenging step – for you and your child. But good-quality child care has lots of benefits for kids, as this video explains.
Along with playgroups and preschool, child care can be a great way for children to learn important social skills. These include communicating, sharing, taking turns, and being able to relate to grown-ups other than mum and dad. Child care can also help kids learn to be a bit more independent.
