Doveton College Early Learning Centre recognised for Exceptional practice
Date first awarded: 28 October 2014
Date re-awarded: 7 December 2017
Date valid until: 6 December 2020
Doveton College Early Learning Centre has been awarded the Excellent rating by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), the highest rating a service can achieve under the National Quality Framework.
Services that receive an overall rating of ‘Exceeding National Quality Standard’ can apply for the Excellent rating. The Excellent rating is awarded for up to three years. After this time services have the option to re-apply.
This is the second time the Doveton based service has achieved the Excellent rating. On this occasion it was recognised for its collaborative partnerships with professional, community or research organisations, practice and environments that enhance children’s learning and growth, and sustained commitment to professional development and support of educators.
Examples of exceptional practice at the service include:
- A strong collaborative partnership with Brace, a not-for-profit Registered Training Organisation, to provide families with informal and formal learning courses and qualifications. These are delivered at a pace and style that supports each family’s learning and helps families to acquire new skills.
- Implementation of the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale – Extension (ECERS-E) tool which helped provide an insight into the quality of the service’s practice in relation to literacy, mathematics, science, environment and diversity.
- Implementation of the Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Wellbeing (SSTEW) scale which is focused on adult and child interactions and designed to consider some of the intentional and relational pedagogical strategies strongly associated with child outcomes.
- A strong commitment to supporting children and families through the service’s integrated model which offers allied health services, parent support services, family support workers, maternal health care and family and children’s services on site.
As a leader in the sector, Doveton College Early Learning Centre is piloting a nine week program called ‘Baby College’ which aims to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged infants by engaging and supporting vulnerable mothers from the prenatal period, helping to ensure their positive impact reaches beyond the children and families who access their service.