November update from the Chief Executive

November has seen a significant focus on engagement and education with the sector. 

I have listened to educators’, service directors’ and approved providers’ experiences and challenges with the Assessment and Rating (A&R) process and engaging with the Education Standards Board (ESB). This feedback assists us to improve. I acknowledge some of your experiences are below expectations and we wish to work with you on how the ESB can positively move forward and continuously improve its practice.

Implementation of the Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care’s recommendation 7 will address the challenges being experienced through:

• creating an intake and assessment team to deliver higher quality, structured and more timely customer service outcomes when you interact with us
• providing more relevant, high value educational activities that support you to maintain voluntary compliance
• improving internal and external quality assurance processes to deliver consistent regulatory practice across authorised officers for the A&R process.
• benchmarking ourselves against our peers, to learn from them and collaborate with them.

Further education and engagement on Exceeding themes is being planned throughout 2024 to build SA’s capacity and understanding and will be delivered in collaboration with Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority (ACECQA).

We recently co-presented two webinars in collaboration with ACECQA to provide education and guidance as part of our regulatory approach in supporting you to achieve and maintain compliance and to continuously improve your practice.

In October, our webinar discussed the key legislative changes that have been made throughout 2023. It also provided participants with practical examples to understand the changes and how they might apply at a service. 

Our November webinar focused on how the National Quality Framework (NQF) supports continuous improvement, especially through practical strategies and professional tools available to deliver an enhanced service.

You can watch the recordings of both webinars on the ESB website.

We have also developed resources that will help you self-navigate the changes. The Your questions on NQF updates answered page contains answers to a list of questions you may have about the NQF. The Roadmap to Support Continuous Quality Improvement page provides handy links to guide you on your continuous improvement journey.

I hope you will find these resources helpful. We encourage you to contact us if you have any questions. You can reach us at educationstandardsboard@sa.gov.au

This is my last message for 2023. I wish you a safe and relaxing festive season with your loved ones and look forward to engaging with you in 2024.