Excellent rating awarded to Goodstart Early Learning Parafield Gardens
Date Awarded: 12 January 2018
Valid until: 11 January 2021
Goodstart Early Learning Parafield Gardens 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.
The Parafield Gardens-based service was recognised for its inclusive partnerships with children and families, 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:
- Implementation of the Enhancing Children’s Outcomes (EChO) model which is targeted at increasing children’s engagement in learning and development and supporting families, by providing high quality, inclusive, and responsive early childhood services with a focus on social and emotional development and communication.
- Alignment with Goodstart Early Learning support services, such as speech pathologist, occupational therapist and senior child and family practitioner, to support the EChO model and provide a range of strategies and programs aimed at improving outcomes for children based on the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) results.
- Commitment to supporting children and families experiencing challenging situations through initiatives such as its partnership with Foodbank SA, offering families an ‘In-House Food Store’ where free fresh and dry goods are available to help reduce the impact of families’ weekly household shopping, as well as supporting healthy eating.
- Providing healthy take home dinners which are offered to families for free to meet the circumstances of the service community.
- A sustained commitment to professional development and support of educators by providing a variety of high quality professional development opportunities targeted at the ongoing capacity building of educators in their daily work with vulnerable children and families.
As a leader in the sector, Goodstart Early Learning Ltd shares its practice and learnings with other education and care services, in particular to embed and share the EChO model, helping to ensure their positive impact reaches beyond the children and families who access their service.
About the Excellent rating
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.
More information is available on the ACECQA website.