Quality Assurance Schemes

[Stargrower]

I have been looking at QA schemes and wondered if anyone has experience of the NDNA's E-Quality Counts or the PSLA's Reflecting on Quality.

Both look good but are expensive £977 for NDNA (I have just become a member) and £517 for PSLA so it's quite an investment.

If anyone has undertaken either, what did you think? What sort of impact did it have on your team / practice / Ofsted rating / popularity with parents etc? Was it worth the money?!

Thanks in advance.

[Guest Nuby]

following............

[Guest]

Does your LA provide QA schemes? Ours do and it's free - in fact it is a requirement to be working toward a QA scheme for receipt of the nursery grant funding; we use The Bristol Standard. Check with your LA before spending any money!

[SueJ]

My LA have dropped their QA scheme now that Ofsted are the "sole arbiters of quality" and they are no longer responsible for this. My setting did the older PSLA scheme yonks ago - when it came up for renewal after three years we decided the cost was prohibitive for us so didn't renew.

My last ofsted was nearly 6 years ago and at that time we had just finished both the psla scheme and the LA scheme - we were given two targets one of which was to improve our self assessment !!!!! We showed our inspectors the two huge storage boxes that we had as evidence of self assessment that we had been doing continuously for the past three years but they wouldn't budge from their judgement and we think that this was because we hadn't done the Ofsted SEF even though it isn't compulsory to do so!

In terms of other impact most parents weren't bothered - their primary reasons for choosing us as a setting are location, opening hours and price after that they start looking at ofsted reports and QA schemes.

We are constantly reflecting on and trying to improve what we do so undertaking the schemes wasn't anything overly new but it was an additional paperwork burden and that was then - the increase in paperwork over the past few years means that we have more than sufficient without doing any more - having said that we are part of the Achieving Early (Achievement for All) pilot and this too encourages reflection and improvement - as a pilot group we don't have to pay for it but when it is rolled out after the pilot period I understand that it is going to cost in the region of £2K

[Stargrower]

Thanks that's really helpful.

Our LA dropped it's QA scheme a few years ago - just after we had spent 18 mohths completing it! :angry:

I just thought it would be a good focus for my team, but I was worried about the amount of paperwork it would generate. I can't really keep up with what I have already!

I have been thinking about creating our own as a tool for reflection and improvemnt and have looked at a couple of books - "From Good to Better Self-evaluation from Birth to Five" and "Valuing Quality in the Early Years". Both Featherstone books.

If I ever get round to putting anything together, I'll post it on here.

Obviously it will cost you £977 if you want to actually look at it.

Edited to say: I've found a more up-to-date book called "The EYFS: Am I Getting it Right?" by Anita Soni and Sue Bristow.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Stargrower

[finleysmaid]

 

I just thought it would be a good focus for my team, but I was worried about the amount of paperwork it would generate. I can't really keep up with what I have already!

 

I guess i would be asking first what aspects of your practice you want to improve? If you find a focus first then you can all plan for what you are going to do (great project for a staff member doing or finished degree??) Quality assurance is something you can do quite simple yourself...finding out views of parents or children might be a good start! Doing environment plans(abc does a good one) focusing on language? or behaviour? each one of these can become a quality focus....just need to record it in a simple way and add it to your sef so that you don't forget to tell the inspector!!

I have never believed parents choose a setting because of their QA.....but we should always reflect on it!

[Carol]

We also use the Bristol Quality Standards and have done for approx 9 years. It doesn't cost anything and I feel it is a brilliant way to reflect on what you are doing and how to further improve practice to benefit the children. I am looking at ways to merge the QA and Ofsted SEF to make less paperwork.

[Cait]

Is it on their website? How do you access it?

[Stargrower]

I just googled it Cait and it's only open to seven LA's who have taken it up - all in the south west.

[Cait]

Ah. Oh well.

[mundia]

Yes, as stargrower says, the Bristol Standard is only available to those LAs in the "Bristol Standard Family". It isnt really free, so if you are getting it for free, it means your LA is subsidising the cost, in which case you are probably very lucky.

 

The best QA scheme I ever did was EEL and BEEL (effective early learning and the baby version), but I think it is also expensive. I found it gave a real 360 review of your practice from all angles.

 

But, as others have said, there is no real need to do a scheme as such, I tend to think any scheme is only as good as the people doing it. If your LA doesnt do anything, do you have a local network or means by which practitioners can get together, as that is as good a way as any to reflect on your practice, without feeling you are doing it alone.