AIS Caretaker's Cottage Child Care Centre earns Excellent rating
Date first awarded: 23 September 2014
Date re-awarded: 13 November 2017
Date valid until: 12 November 2020
AIS Caretaker's Cottage Child Care 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 three years. After this time, services have the option to re-apply.
AIS Caretaker’s Cottage Child Care Centre is a work-based service that caters for athletes and families employed by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and National Sporting Organisation (NSO).
Thisis the second time the ACT based service has been awarded the Excellent rating. On this occasion, the service was recognised for its inclusive partnerships with children and families, practice and environments that enhance children’s learning and growth and positive workplace culture and organisational values.
Examples of exceptional practice at the service include:
- Embedding inclusion measures to ensure that the needs of individual children are met and their opportunities to participate are maximised, such as transforming a space within the service to create an ‘Engine Room’, a safe sensory space to promote self-regulation through sensory and cognitive strategies.
- A strong commitment to supporting children’s emerging social competence through implementing the ‘Educator’s Toolkit for Behaviour’, also known as the ‘Cups Approach’. The framework provides strategies to foster children's behavioural and social learning and challenges educators to re-think and re-frame their role in supporting children’s emerging social competence.
- The service also extended its understanding of adult wellbeing by introducing the ‘Cups Approach’ into educator’s interactions with each other, which has helped educators to be more conscious and able to recognise the needs of their colleagues.
- Taking into account the unique circumstances of the families and supporting them in their role by providing additional opportunities for children such as swimming lessons and a music program that promotes relaxation and mindfulness.
- Educators appreciating one another through the implementation of ‘Pockets of Gratitude’, with the aim of expressing appreciation for one another which creates a strong sense of collegial respect and closeness, and strengthens teamwork.
As a leader in the sector, AIS Caretaker's Cottage Child Care Centre shares its knowledge and experiences in various ways that support the development of the wider education and care sector, such as presenting at conferences and workshops, contributing content to professional publications and opening its doors to other services to view its practice.