“It’s our polite nudge in the ribs to help you and your team stay organised and on task.”
This week’s subject is: Reflective practice
Element 4.2.1: Management, educators and staff work with mutual respect and collaboratively, and challenge and learn from each other, recognising each other’s strengths and skills.
Does your service have a documented, active culture of professional inquiry that is collaborative, involving management, educators, children and young people and families to ensure continual improvement across all aspects of Service delivery?
A lively culture of professional inquiry is established when the educational leader, nominated supervisor, co-ordinators and educators are all contributing to continuous improvement at the service. A robust culture of critical reflection occurs when educators as a team, as well as children and young people and families, are involved in the ongoing cycle of review where current practices are discussed, debated and evaluated, and new ideas are generated. Educators can critically reflect on aspects such as program quality, environment design, equity and children’s development and wellbeing. Early Years Learning Framework; Framework for School Age Care.
Ensure you maintain a range of documentation to show a culture of reflective practice which includes details of quality practices being implemented that support continuous improvement. To break it down into specific steps, educators document their critical reflections, whether they’re done individually or collaboratively, formally (at staff meetings or professional learning) or informally (through discussions with colleagues, children or families). Their reflections include the who, how and why analysis of what’s being reflected on and outline the planned steps for implementation to improve the practice.
Tips for inspiring and documenting critical reflection across all aspects of service delivery:
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- Consider setting time aside at each staff or QIP meeting to focus on a particular aspect of service delivery or a specific element from the NQS to examine the quality practices being implemented. Document educator’s perspectives and feedback on how to improve on each practice to achieve better outcomes for all stakeholders. Ensure these are added to your QIP.
- Implement the use of reflective questions that challenge thinking and everyday practice. See the Guide to the NQF for reflective questions for each standard.
- Reword these reflective questions to be directed to families and/or children and young people, to gain collaborative input towards the same reflective questions. Review and reflect on these responses with the team to determine areas of improvement.
- Daily reflection journals are useful for briefly documenting what worked, or didn’t work and why, at the end of each day.
- Analysis of observations, resulting in identifying, implementing and documenting required changes in practice to achieve/ that result in improved outcomes for the child.
- When educators attend professional development sessions they share their learning with the team and reflect on how to use the new knowledge to improve their everyday practice. Ensure these are documented/included in meeting minutes.
- Provide staff with a copy of relevant articles for reading prior to attending meetings. Unpack and share perspectives to support all educators to be involved in the cycle of inquiry and drive quality improvement.
Reflection topics could include:
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- the role and application of professional ethics and standards across the service
- unpacking your service philosophy and identifying how it’s reflected in everyday practice and service delivery
- assessing the effectiveness of the service’s methods for obtaining family input, feedback and involvement
- identifying and implementing opportunities to strengthen ethical practice
- the theories that underpin quality practice
- identifying and addressing any gaps in their professional knowledge
- unpacking the Early Childhood Australia’s Code of Ethics (2016)
- unpacking the relevance of the service’s Code of Conduct
- understanding data from Australian Early Development Census (AEDC)
By fostering a culture of collaboration and professional inquiry, educators not only enhance their professional growth but also contribute to improved outcomes for children and families. Reflective practice is a simple but powerful way to foster continual improvement. By critically thinking about everything educators are doing and making adjustments, educators can ensure their practices are intentional, purposeful, meaningful and constantly evolving. Documenting these reflections, in a variety of ways helps to demonstrate a commitment to continual improvement and providing a high-quality Service to Authorised Officers during assessment and rating processes.
Resources:
Using reflective practice to drive improvement in your service
Reflective Practice: Making a commitment to ongoing learning
We Hear You: Uncovering the layers of reflective practice: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Within System7 go to Quality Area 1/Module 8 and Quality Area 4/ Modules 4, & 6 to submit self-assessment notes and if required, open a QIP issue if you identify any areas of improvement.
The Childcare Centre Desktop has a range of resources to assist services with critical reflection. These include Critical Reflection Template, Staff Meeting Minutes Template, Professional Development Ambitions and Reflections Form and much more.
Resources, NQS Element, Regulation and System7 links
Childcare Centre Desktop – Childcare Centre Desktop
National Quality Standard – QA 1/ 1.3.2- Critical reflection and QA 4/4.2.1- Professional collaboration
National Regulations – 155, 156, 168, 169
System7 Module – QA 1/ Module 8 and QA 4/ Modules 4, & 6
If you have any questions send us a note via the Contact page here!
