Carol Stovold Quality Kidz qualitykidz.co.nz

One of the hardest tasks for parents - trying to decide where to send their child for early childhood care and education - can be determining what quality actually looks like. Unlike some products and services, there are no accreditation standards, no master plumbers or accredited body to tell you which services are actually providing quality child care.

There is the New Zealand Teachers Council which licenses individual teachers, the Ministry of Education Licensing team and Education Review Office which visit services and assess outcomes against minimum criteria. But how do parents sift through this information to determine quality, when every child care service says they offer it?

There are many sources of information to assist with this process, including www.minedu.govt.nz/Parents and www.kiwifamilies.co.nz. In my opinion, one of the better sites around with information to assist parents is www.childforum.com. The site has many interesting articles comparing service types, costs and quality and even has a tool that parents may use to check key items when choosing childcare. One of the articles on this site offers six signs of quality for parents to look for. These are outlined below with permission from the author Dr Sarah Farquhar.

1. The child's learning is supported and enriched.

2. The child is happy being in the service, and shows this.

3. Potential risks to the child's safety and health are carefully managed - not eliminated.

4. The physical environment suits the child and is challenging.

5. The values, beliefs and language of the child's family are truly supported.

6. Parents' needs are fully met.

There is a wealth of research from practitioners and researchers defining quality from an academic perspective, but it is more difficult to find research on what parents perceive as quality. Some parental research available defines quality for parents as the relationships with carers and cultural responsiveness. NZEI in their 2010 report said 'Researchers have come up with both structural and process factors that are associated with quality. Structural factors include matters such as qualified teachers, high teacher to child ratios, and small group sizes. Process factors include matters such as high quality interactions with children and whānau, a warm and welcoming environment, staff who can make connections between home life and the service, who can forge meaningful relationships with the children and whānau, and who are committed to quality practices in teaching and learning.”

Sarah also says 'If a service has some deficiencies in the areas of children's learning, physical environment, supporting family culture and language, and parents' needs – and if these deficiencies are considered minor and they can be made up for within the family at home or in another setting the child attends, the service may still be a quality one”.

At the end of the day researching options and using information available such as those found on the listed sites provides parents with the tools to determine the ‘quality' that best suits their family needs.

Next week: Celebrating Christmas