Early Childhood Education Rating Scales ECERS

Method Brief description Advantages Disadvantages
Early Childhood Education Rating Scales ECERS is a formative assessment tool. It is an evidence-based quality improvement tool, specifically designed for the classroom environment. It enables setting to assess their classroom environment and to clearly identify steps for improvement. The evaluation has seven indicators ranked between the scale of 1 to 7 where 1 being the lowest and 7 is excellent.
ECERS assessment tools is relatively easy to use. It is self-evaluation tool which offers notes of clarification. Scoring is easy to understand as it as scale of 1 to 7 only. It is cost effectively and easy to monitor. The assessment tools are both reliable and valid. It helps in identifying strength and weakness and develop action plan accordingly. This requires honest and open conversation as it is self-evaluation tools. There is no time limit for evaluation. It also lacks covering broader aspects like leadership and management or a detailed picture of how setting works in partnership with parents. In this process it is difficult to involve all the members of staff.
PLA RoQ It is one of the significant and valuable method of measuring quality within the setting. As the name says it is reflecting on own practices and procedures and planning to overcome the weaknesses. RoQ is a framework that supports settings to records their quality improvement based on their previous practices. It has a three stage process which is based on
observe-reflect-improve-review cycle.
The main advantage of PLA RoQ is that this method is based on the previous practices and so strength and weaknesses can be identified easily. All staff members are involved and everybody is accountable for quality procedures. It is time bound and it should be completed in two years. Parents and children are also involved in quality check. This method requires to fill templates of practices by setting and then interviews and professional discussions are conducted. It saves busy managers to make lengthy reports at the end of evaluation but evidence has to be collected over the period of time. This methods requires strong relationship between staff members because this is only possible in collaborative and co-operating environment. Setting has to keep records for evidence and this requires lot of paperwork and time. All staff members need to be honest and critically evaluate the practices of the setting.
NDNA National Day Nurseries Association works towards promoting and achieving quality in early years as well as identifying areas of improvement. It also provides guidance and training to achieve outstanding quality counts in the settings. It is a continuous improvement program in which all team members are involved. It improves staff development, engagement, understanding and morale. It is done online and is not very expensive. It has panel of qualified and expert professional who train to achieve quality standards set. It difficult to involve all members in the process as the quite lengthy. There is no guidance as all policies, standards and evidence of documents are submitted online.
Self- Evaluation Form Self evaluation form is a quality assurance system by Ofstead in UK. It is a from filled by settings and submitted before inspection. It helps settings to evaluate their own practices and help inspectors assess on the evidence submitted by the settings. It is a detailed form and covers all the areas like academics, development of children, leadership, management and overall effectiveness of the setting. In UAE all schools also fill Self Evaluation Form before inspection by KHDA. It is a tool to assess and evaluate owns practices and procedures. It involves all the stakeholders like children, parents, staff, leadership team. It helps is providing details of strength and areas of improvement in the settings. This form is very detailed and is helpful when inspection is planned as it gives a clear picture of best practices in the setting.Its goal is to illuminate the current state of the setting, determine its positive achievements, identify problem areas and suggest solutions and improvement strategies.
Honest and reliability is very difficult to assess till inspection is conducted. Sometimes to get good rating, setting fill self evaluation form in details and showcase during inspection only. Only leadership team is accountable for evaluation. It is a long process as documents have to be collected for every area.
Self-help books Self-help books are the tools for self-assessment in identifying and moving towards high quality standards. It helps in creating a positive environment in the setting. Self-help books helps in expanding and extending limits to achieve quality standards. It is cost effective and easily accessible. There is no guidance in this method. It is not an accurate method. This process does not involve all staff members. There may be lack of knowledge about what is the weakness and how to overcome it.

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