When choosing early learning and care, or navigating the system once your child is enrolled, families are often met with unfamiliar terminology. We believe informed families are confident families. Below is a plain-language explanation of some commonly used terms and what they mean in practice.
Assessment & Rating
Early learning services are assessed against the National Quality Standard (NQS), which covers areas such as children's health and safety, relationships, learning programs and leadership. Ratings range from Significant Improvement Required to Exceeding, with an additional Excellent rating available through a separate application process.
New services may display Not Yet Assessed. This is something you'll only see for newer services, but it's because the Regulatory Authority is slow at getting around to assessing them! During the Assessment & Rating process, the Regulatory Authority will assess the service's 'planning cycle' (amongst other things) - specifically, they will review evidence provided by the service that shows that there is a complete cycle of planning for each child at the service.
The planning cycle has a number of stages (observe, assess, plan, implement, evaluate), and it takes time to onboard new children at the service, and complete all those stages of the planning cycle. So assessing a service before they've had a chance to complete planning cycles for their children wouldn't really be fair. However, that doesn't mean that the Regulatory Authority won't visit new services before they are assessed - each service has at least one visit between opening and being assessed.
Conditions on Service Approval
All approved services operate under certain conditions. Some conditions are standard, while others may be applied by the Regulatory Authority to support safe and compliant operation, for example, requirements related to staffing, training or operational processes. If a service has conditions on its approval that isn't necessarily an indication of poor practice.
Staffing Waivers
In some circumstances, services may receive approval to count suitably qualified and experienced staff toward specific staffing requirements when recruitment challenges exist. Importantly, staffing waivers do not change educator-to-child ratios and are closely regulated.
Compliance Breaches
Services are now required to display their compliance history in a place where it can easily be viewed by families. At Futuro, these are displayed in our reception, on our regulatory display board. It's also possible to find information regarding the compliance history of a service in NSW on the NSW Regulatory Authority's website and on the Starting Blocks website.
Breaches can range from minor administrative matters to more serious issues, and a recorded breach does not automatically mean a service is unsafe.
At Futuro, we believe trust is built through openness, respectful communication, and shared understanding. Whether you're already part of our community or exploring care options for the future, we welcome conversations and are always happy to support families in navigating this information.