ALICA BURKE: So, good morning, everybody. I'm really excited to be sharing some time with you this morning to take a deep dive into assessment and rating for outside school hours care. My name's Alicia Burke, and I'm the relieving manager of the Continuous Improvement Team here with the New South Wales Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority. I'm joined by some colleagues today. I have Vanessa Beck, who is our hub coordinator of our Continuous Improvement Team. I have Emily Hamilton who's an Authorised Officer through our Agile Team. We also have a number of department staff in the background who will be prepared to answer questions throughout the session. And we have some guest speakers today. We have Pauline O'Kane from Network and Jenny Collins from Coogee Care Centre and Kate Gray from Eleebana Community Outside School Hours Care. So we're going to run through things, all things assessment and rating to make you feel ready and prepared. Before we commence today's session, though, I would like to acknowledge country. I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways in which we all work and live. I'd like to pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive in the Department of Education to make sure that every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner achieves their full potential through education, through leisure, and early education. So there are a couple of housekeeping things I'll just run through before we get the session started. As you'll see your microphone, video, and chat functions have been disabled during the webinar. We do have a Q&A function that's available for any questions that comes throughout the session. So please feel free to use this feature throughout the session. We also have a dedicated Q&A panel towards the end so you can also hold your questions until that time if you like. You'll have the option to ask questions anonymously if you wish. We also have automated closed captions which have been enabled to ensure accessibility. And we will be recording this session and publishing it on our website following today's session. I'd like to thank all participants for some pre-submitted questions that we have received. We did get quite an overwhelming response. We've looked at all of those questions to make sure some of the content that we have today is covering those particular topics. And we've also, as I said earlier, have the dedicated Q&A panel session towards the end, which we can go through some specific questions. So just stepping us through a bit of a session overview for today so that you know what to expect and we hope that we cover all the content that you have wanted to discuss. So we're going to go through the improvements to assessment and rating and more specifically, what this means around partial reassessment visits and the 5-day notice period. We'll also go through the Continuous Improvement Team and discuss who they are and what they do. And I'm sure some of you have already engaged with that team, so it'll just be a nice reminder for you. You're going to meet an Authorised Officer. So Emily Hamilton will share some stories with you around her experience assessing and rating services. We also have some wonderful services that are prepared to share their journey. So we have Kate Gray and Jenny Collins who are going to be sharing some stories around how they felt comfortable and prepared for assessment and rating. And at the end, we have a live Q&A panel. So you'll have myself, Pauline, and some authorised officers that will help answer some of those questions. So sit back if you haven't already, grab yourself a drink, there is a little bit of content to start, but as we move throughout the session, it'll be a little bit more interactive as we progress through. The improvements to assessment and rating. Now some of this information has already been shared in previous EC Connect sessions, but I did just want to recap it for those of you that may not have been able to make some of those sessions. So as we know, assessment and rating is intended to influence and positively impact developmental and leisure-based outcomes for children in Australia. We've been assessing and rating services under the current National Quality Framework since 2012 and over that decade, we've observed services commitment to continuous improvement and promoting quality ratings for families to ensure that the information families have about the service reflects the quality that's there. After more than 10 years of the assessment and rating cycle, we've also reflected nationally on how the system can be improved. So we wanted the assessment and rating process to promote best practise and quality in services every day and provide more reliable up-to-date information about the quality for families and also the efficiencies and effectiveness for providers and services. It's really important that your assessment and rating, the national quality rating is reflective of your service every day and looking at better efficient ways that the regulatory body can assess and rate services will achieve this. With these goals in mind, New South Wales have listened to the sector about the challenges you experience when undergoing the assessment and rating process and we've decided to implement the national changes to assessment and rating in a staggered approach. So nationally, all states and territories agreed that the increased use of partial assessment visits, reassessment visits could be introduced from last year. I will go through in further details, some more information about the specific requirements around partial assessment visits and what 5-day notice period looks like. At the department here, we are really pleased to be introducing these changes to assessment and rating from mid this year, which is not that far away. From July, you'll expect these changes to be in place. I'm going to step you through now the specifics of the changes. As previously mentioned, through multiple ECE connect sessions, from mid this year, so from July, these improvements will be become part of business as usual processes. The first improvement to the assessment and rating cycle is the use or the increased use of partial reassessment visits. This means that instead of all 7 national quality areas being assessed, you'll increasingly see a subset of 2 or 4 quality areas that will be assessed. There will be times where full assessment and rating visits will remain, for example, for a service that doesn't hold a quality rating. So a not yet assessed service, a new service will need to undergo the full assessment and rating process. And also, in the department we apply a risk-based model to any of our regulatory functions. So we may see time since your last assessment and rating visit could impact the eligibility for a partial. Partial reassessment visits in New South Wales are well underway. So we have actually conducted these from last year with an early adopter model. So we did reach out to services that were prepared to nominate their services to undergo a partial reassessment visit and we have progressively been building on that throughout the last 12 months. This has allowed us to review and analyse the evidence coming through around national quality ratings that remain through the use of partial reassessments. We also wanted to make sure that there were pathways in the partial reassessment process for any service aiming to achieve an exceeding rating or even an excellent rating. So there is no disadvantage to any service when undergoing a partial reassessment process. The great thing about a partial reassessment process as well is that as a service, you'll be able to nominate a quality area. So it's always a great idea to start thinking about what quality area are you most proud of. It may be a quality area that you've had a couple of challenges and struggles and really, really moved past that or it may just be a quality area where you've had really great community engagement and you'd like to have that quality area assessed. So just reiterating, part of that partial reassessment process will be either 2 or 4 quality areas for those services eligible, and you'll be able to nominate a quality area for review. Now the second improvement to assessment and rating is the introduction of the 5-day notice period. So currently, you know that you would receive a letter notification of assessment and rating visit that would typically provide a 12-week window. There is a timeframe in which you'll be asked to submit your quality improvement plan or self-assessment information and the officer currently provides 5 days notice prior to the visit. Moving into mid this year, so from July, your officer will provide that 5-day notice. They'll contact you, outline at that point whether or not your service has been selected for a partial reassessment or is required to undergo a full assessment and rating visit. And that will be your 5 day notice period. So the 12-week window will no longer be there. In New South Wales, we've heard from the sector that these changes would require our support. So over the last 12 months, we really have worked closely with services that have opted in or early adopter model for these 2 improvements and considered their feedback to operationalise changes that have been required. Now I'm going to go into a little bit more detail around exactly what the 5-day notice period is going to look like. As you can see, a diagram is always good to visually show you what that actually looks like. It gives you an overview of what the 5-day notice period will look like in practise. So 5 days out from your assessment and rating visit, the officer is going to call that delegated person and advise of the assessment and rating visit. Like I said earlier, at that point, you would be advised if your service has been selected for a partial assessment and rating visit or a full assessment and rating visit. This is also a really good opportunity if you have been selected for a partial reassessment visit. To start considering what quality area you may like to put forward. The officer will always follow up with an email making sure the provider and service email addresses are included in that notification. So you'll be verbally advised at the 5-day mark with a follow up email to have that written notification. So 4 days before the visit, the officer will commence our desktop audit. This usually involves reviewing information around the service, some contextual information about the service, to help prepare the officer. It may include identifying the location and any sort of travel requirements that may be needed. 3 days before the visit is your opportunity to submit your self-assessment or quality improvement plan and confirm that quality area that you'd like to put forward for assessment in a partial visit. So 3 days out, that's where you'll be asked to submit the information around your self-assessment or quality improvement plan. Over those next 2 days, the Authorised Officer will review further information about your service that's contained in the self-assessment and quality improvement plan. Later on in the session, we'll go through specific information around self-assessment and quality improvement plan and how this process supports you in assessment and rating. And then of course, we get to day zero or visit day. So visually that's just a nice way to explain how we're moving forward. Now I'm going to hand you over to my colleague, Vanessa Beck, who's going to talk to you about the Continuous Improvement Team and the support and information you'll be able to receive. Over to you, Vanessa.

VANESSA BECK: Thanks, Alicia. Good morning, everyone. It's really lovely to be here and to speak with you and I am going to have a bit of a chat with you about our Continuous Improvement Team and how we can support you and what we're all about. So just starting, thinking about what we're doing how and why you do what you do are those important milestones in your services journey through continuous improvement. So it's a really great time for acknowledging those key achievements that you are implementing with your educators and is a chance to share with them and with us how you support your educators on that continual process. So a assessment rating becomes a key component of your service continuous improvement journey. But it's really important to note that it's one component of the overall process, not the focus of the process itself. So we're going to pull that apart a little bit too. So as far as Continuous Improvement Team are concerned, what can we offer you? We're a team of officers who have all done assessment and rating. So we're familiar with the process and the pressures and we basically offer individualised support to your service to assist your educators in understanding key components of ongoing reflection and consideration of your practises, when the assessment rating cycle becomes prevalent to what you are doing. And we can help you to tie some knowledge around how New South Wales is harnessing self-assessment in a way to drive those improvements in your practise. So we offer a range of things to you. You'll be allocated to one officer when you call so you have that continuity of conversation and we will initially offer you a one hour-ish session where we talk through self-assessment, your documentation, and how New South Wales is harnessing it specifically to really drive that process. Now part of that is around the assessment rating cycle. So we will help talk you through all the information that you need in respect to that as well. Following that, we will offer you the opportunity to share potentially a standard, a part of your work and that officer will have a bit of a look and they'll give you some hints and tips on your writing and how to really write in a way that helps you to reflect through your practise in a really meaningful way. Obviously, ongoing support is there at that point. Some services that's a few calls, other services that's more, it really genuinely is tailored to what you need and that person is there to support you with any questions you might have and to check in if you need to at any point. Another part of what we do is around that ongoing support, that technical support either during submission or when you're using the portal, the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning portal. And we have a couple of staff who are really very good and make themselves available so that we can try and make that process as smooth as we can. You can see on the slide, we do have a first tier component to us as well, which we're not going into today, but you can see our team covers a range of different options for you there. So moving ahead, thinking about self-assessment and self-assessment approach, a self-assessment approach is unique to your service and your context. It's a way for you and your team to share your strengths, your goals and plans for improvement while demonstrating how you are meeting those requirements of the National Quality Framework in that ongoing basis. So as we know, and you can see there on the slide, the National Quality Framework links together. It's the umbrella, it links together the National Quality Standards, the National Law and Regulations, and our Approved Learning Frameworks. So from a self-assessment point of view, it's really essential in driving that continuous process through the knowledge and use of those aspects of the National Quality Framework. It's important to understand that the self-assessment approach is a process which is commonly linked to assessment and rating, which is a measuring tool to test and confirm how your service meets the requirements of the National Quality framework. We know that elements 7.2.1 of the National Quality Standard refers to self-assessment and continuous improvement. However, what we've learned over time is that this self-assessment and continuous improvement process, particularly with the use of more traditional QIP style formats, often saw management and leadership teams engaging with and preparing these documents for the purpose of the assessment and rating visit. Meaning sometimes the intent of that self-reflection was getting a little bit lost along the way. For many of you, if you have seen and used the New South Wales self-assessment working document, that's that PDF document that our team has been supporting people with for the last couple of years, has been a key driver in how you might document your quality journey and assist you to identify those key practises to be able to have that ongoing process of coming back and reviewing what you are doing and making those quality changes. And then when it is time for assessment rating, also helping you to be prepared for what that visit will conversation from where that will start. All New South Wales services that choose to supply their self-assessment information do not need to submit a QIP as well. Now you've probably heard this talked about numerous times, but just quickly, we know that Regulation 55 talks about what is required as part of your quality improvement plan and the New South Wales working document and now the New South Wales Self-assessment portal meet the requirements of Regulation 55. So if you choose to use this New South Wales version of self-assessment, you do not need to maintain a QIP as well. So submitting your self-assessment information provides an excellent opportunity for you to engage and drive that A&R process by sharing your service's unique context and those key things that are happening on an everyday basis. Now I will just point out that, a copy of our recent June ECE Connect session on self-assessment, a case study, and a how to guide is available on our website and we are going to provide you today with the details of the New South Wales Regulatory Authority Continuous Improvement Team if you haven't had an opportunity to reach out and we can offer that individualised support in understanding the self-assessment approach. So we will pop those details in the chat for you now or a little bit later in our session. Alicia, I'll pass back to you.

ALCIA BURKE: Thanks, Vanessa. And for those of you that can, if you have a look in the Q&A section, I've actually put the details around Continuous Improvement Team and the link to information around self-assessment just for you to have a look at. So look, how to be ready for assessment and rating; the process, the cycle and the visit. We all know that assessment and rating is the measuring tool to be able to test and confirm how your service meets the requirements of the National Quality Framework. And the best way to feel prepared is to understand the process and be equipped with the tools to assist you in feeling comfortable. I'm going to go through some hot tips or suggestions that might make the process feel a little easy. I often think it's like going for your driver's licence. Having somebody watch your practise can be slightly uncomfortable at times, but we want you to be able to put your best foot forward and we have a couple of things that may be able to assist in that. It's important to understand the assessment and rating visit is an opportunity to have open conversations with the officer around the quality of your program and the practise. Provide us with the information about your service. And there are things that you could be doing to help support everyday practise by having that regular contact with your team to promote an understanding of the process but more so promote an understanding of the National Quality Standards and how everything pieces together. It's really important to make sure staff are aware or your educators are aware of the processes coming into place from July. So the 5-day notice period and the introduction or the increased use of partial reassessment visits. So any information we've shared with you today, we'll provide some further links to our website to make sure that all of your educators are aware. And look, a big part of ensuring that quality practise is embedded in your service is making sure that your quality improvement plan or your self-assessment is a live working document. It's something that's used often and it's not something that's just pulled out for the purpose of the assessment and rating visit. I know this can be a challenge in time poor environments. I know that there's very limited time to be able to work with your educators and work as a team. And we will step you through some further information on how to support that. Having an ongoing self-assessment or a quality improvement plan linked with the National Quality Standards ensures that you understand all the components of the regulatory requirements that are involved and also key practises that you're undertaking at your service. What is it that you are most proud of? What would you like the regulatory authority to consider when assessing and rating your service? The other key point is engaging in support. As Vanessa's just explained to you, we have a Continuous Improvement Team that is available to provide contextual support for individual services and also some large provider groups. And I would highly recommend that you reach out to the team and connect with an officer there. You'll be able to unpack some of your key practises and just have continuity of the same person that will help support through the process. It's also important to note that that officer that has been providing support from Continuous Improvement Team will not be the same officer that will conduct the assessment and rating visit. So it's your opportunity to unpack maybe some of your challenges and some areas you might not be meeting at this time and work towards improving those practises. We'll also be going through the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal. It's quite a lot to say in one piece, and Vanessa will explain the features of that portal in more detail. But this portal allows you to use the program live and update information as you go so that it's there and it's ready for that time when assessment and rating process commences. There's also a number of support services additionally training services that are available to help support your understanding of the National Quality Framework. So we have network, ACECQA have a number of different resources available and CELA also provides some professional development that you can access. So there are a number of places you can go to help get some additional support. And lastly, increasing the use of partial assessment and rating visits. Like I said earlier, it's a good way to start thinking about a quality area that you are really, really proud of. Something that shows how you've moved through some difficult challenges, something that you've improved in quality or something that you've continued to get better at through different levels of engagement. That is your opportunity to really have a think about where your strengths are at this point in time. Now I am going to hand you back over to Vanessa who is going to explain a little bit more around the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal and then I'll join you in a little bit.

VANESSA BECK: Thanks, Alicia. Self-assessment is a cycle that provides the opportunity for services for you guys to identify and review those key practises that are occurring at your service every day in line with the National Quality Standard. The self-assessment cycle allows you to identify what you are doing and why you are doing it. Now currently, we have around 85% of our services that are engaging in this self-assessment approach and we see that when it comes to assessment rating and how services are opting to share their information. So to support and extend on this, we've launched our new Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal, which we're very excited about. This online portal supports you to maintain a live self-assessment and quality plan that you can access at any time from wherever you are. It's live and it's always there for you to do. So, this Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal is mirrored on our New South Wales self-assessment working document. So if you've had engagement with that, the process of engagement is exactly the same. As I've said, using the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal where you're meeting Regulations 55 and 56, primarily 55, looking at what needs to be included, which is great, you can have that reassurance. And it will guide you through that self-assessment process and ongoing quality improvement planning document that's also attached in there. We are also going to share with you the link today through the chat so that you can access that portal and have a bit of a look for yourself if you haven't had the opportunity yet. So our self-assessment portal is a web-based system designed to look very similar to the system that your services are currently using to share information at the time of assessment and rating. So it should be familiar. It's clear, it's easy to engage with and provides a place to record or document all of your service key practises or not all of them but many of your service key practises, goals and ongoing quality improvement directions. So main features obviously are, it's web-based. You can sign in and out whenever you want to. The information can be used as a working document to support that self-assessment cycle. A single account is created for each service and you're able to provide access to any key people who you would like to be part of that process. Streamlining the process of sharing that information both with the regulatory authority at the time of assessment and rating but also with your families and your staff and your stakeholders. There are ways that you can save and share that information and it's aligned with our self-assessment working document so that familiarity is there and hopefully, the goal in creating it was it is simple and easy for you just to pick up and use. So we hope that you find it that way too. Now our next slide is going to show you what the portal actually looks like. It's a picture of our dashboard. Once you've signed in, what it is that you'll see when you're going to use that self-assessment portal. So the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning portal, as I've said is that enables you to record your information as it's convenient to you. So as we mentioned, we can't see your information until you choose to submit it and it's a really important thing to reassure because there are no operational staff who can see that information. This is just your portal where you can pop in anything that you would like to have in there as part of your process. We are currently holding online information sessions over a range of dates, which runs for about an hour and I usually run those, I walk you through all those aspects of using the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal. You can register for these sessions through Humanitix and we're going to share a link with you now in the chat so that you can do that. Dates are constantly added to this Humanitix site. So if you're going in there and you find that the date doesn't suit, you check back in, we are going to add more. We're trying to base those dates on when people indicate is the best time for them. So I'm open to that feedback and we are continuing to plan those sessions if that's something that you're interested in. Okay, that link is going to be in the chat and the portal is now live. So we're also going to add that link in there for you. So as we've said, the portal helps to streamline how you are thinking about your practises and pulling those together and then how you're sharing that information with the regulatory authority. And the reason this is not just about assessment and rating, this is about your process, but when it does come to assessment and rating, it makes it easy to share and it makes it easy at that 5-day reduced notice period for you to be able to share that information without having the stress of pulling it all together at that last minute. Okay? So as at that time, you'll have 2 days to finalise that information once you get that call, day 3, that information needs to be here and this way, you can simply go in, make any quick changes you need to and hit submit and that will come through. As I've said, I will highlight again that only access to information is by you. When you submit that, it sends a copy to us. So at no point is anybody coming into your account to see what you are doing. And this account is genuinely to use for you. A live working document where you can be honest and openly record what's happening in your service and the direction that you're taking to improve your practises. We do have technical support available and have been running, like I said, regular information sessions. There is a user guide available on the landing page and also through the self-assessment portal. And that helps you with frequently asked questions and information on the operation of the self-assessment portal itself. But if you did have any technical challenges, for example, creating an account or signing in, we do as part of our team, have a couple of guys who are very quick and very good at sorting those things out. And so we would encourage you to contact us straight away so that we can help you as quickly as we can and our technical support email and phone number will be shared with you in the chat for you to reach out. Now as part of our early adopter launch, our ICT project team and officers from the Continuous Improvement Team worked closely with users to gain feedback and implement a range of suggestions provided by services by you guys to make the application more user-friendly. This is genuinely based on what we heard from services. And our goal is to have a system that makes life easier for you. So any feedback on it is welcome and we have had multiple technical demonstrations since July and we've invited over 2,700 services users to participate who had come in and register early and be part of those sessions. We've also featured a technical demonstration of the portal during the planning for quality ECE Connect session, which was held in November last year and we've made that recording available on our website and the moderators are also going to pop that link in the chat for you so that you can go and have a look at that if you would like to. So as you can see from this slide, we've had a lot of feedback that's come directly from users of our self-assessment portal and it's really invaluable to us to know how to develop the things to keep and the things that we want to change. So please keep that coming in. It is welcome and appreciated. And I would just say if you've not registered yet to use the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal, please follow the link in the chat to attend an upcoming technical demonstration where you'll be showing the features in more detail and offered support as you onboard to use the application. Continuous Improvement Team want to be here to help and support you. So please don't hesitate to reach out to us at any time. And I will pass back over to Alicia to introduce our next guest. Thanks, Alicia.

ALICIA BURKE: Thanks, Vanessa. Well I'm pleased to introduce Emily Hamilton. So Emily Hamilton is an Authorised Officer within our Agile Team and has been working for the department for over 2 years. Emily has worked in OSHC for about 20 years all up, both here in Australia and in Canada and has taught English at a primary school in Beijing. She has also been a trainer for network at times and a validator through NCAC previously. So Emily comes with great experience ooshy at heart and I'm pleased to have Emily speak to you a little bit more about assessment and rating process and how she feels services could be better prepared. Welcome, Emily.

EMILY HAMILTON: Thank you, and thank you so much for having me here. I'm really looking forward to speaking to the sector that still holds a dear place in my heart. So thank you so much everyone for joining us. It's great that you're participating in this webinar today. I have a few questions that I'm going to respond to that were submitted by participants, so hopefully this helps get a sense of our role and how we engage with assessment and rating. So the first question is, what do I enjoy most when engaging with services during the assessment and rating process? And the key thing is that we're very happy as officers to be spending time in services. It's a lot more engaging than some of the other work that we do in the course of our run in our role. So it's great to be at services and great to be spending time with you and your children and your families and it's very interesting for us to see different ways of doing things. So whether it's an OSHC that we're visiting or a long day care family day care, it's great to find out how you specifically at your service support your families and children. For me personally, it's observing those genuine interactions between you and your children that is most meaningful. That's the part I miss most. And so it's great to be there and be a fly on the wall observing those really lovely relationships. I think it's, one of the things that comes up is sometimes, services are concerned about how children behave and that's not, we're not there to make judgments about children's behaviour. It's really just about how you engage with them that we're looking at. Another question that was asked is, do we have any tips for OSHC services on feeling prepared for assessment and rating? And it's like everything in life that's kind of stressful and uncomfortable like job interviews and everything else that we have to do. practise will help. And so the more you talk about your service to people, whether that's parents or visitors or your school principal or anyone who will listen, basically, the more you talk about what you do and what you're passionate about, the more comfortable you'll get with that. I think approaching us like we're real people, not just a faceless person from the department is will help you a lot. So we are, we are people who enjoy spending time at early childhood education and care services and OSHC services and so we're really happy to be there and we just really want to hear about your program. So trying to approach it with that idea that we really are just trying to get an understanding of how you do what you do is going to, I think hopefully, help you feel more confident. One of the tips I'd offer there is that going to having other service leaders come to your service, so whether it's educators of other services or coordinators come and spend time, would be kind of comparable because they know a bit about us practise at their service or their context that they've seen. But you talking about your practise and how you do it at your service will get you and your team a little more comfortable with that. So inviting other people to spend time with you might be one of the ways that you can do that, building that confidence. I think the other thing about preparation is when you're working on your self-assessment tool or your quality improvement plan, thinking about how you're going to demonstrate that. So focusing on what things you might have to have ready to show us, so things that we might cite as officers thinking about what routines we'll be able to see in practise would be things that we observe. Being mindful that if you're talking about practises in vacation care and we're visiting during afterschool care, we may not be able to observe those. So you might have to provide other evidence to demonstrate how that happens, but what can we see while we're there and what will you be able to show us, you know, happening within your routines. And then thinking about too about, you know, who's going to be able to discuss a practise. And so if an educator has been really instrumental in something happening, maybe they're the best person to talk about what they've been doing versus someone else who maybe hasn't been as involved. So think about that as well too. The other question is, what is one of the most memorable interactions I've had during an assessment and rating visit? I personally feel it's quite valuable when the team, the service leader, whoever introduces children to the assessor and explains why they're there and what the purpose is of their visit. Obviously, children are deeply curious and most of them will ask us anyway. So leading with that answer upfront I think helps them understand, you know, that the whole system is based on we want children to be safe and happy in their services, whatever context that is. And so allowing children to be part of that process and inviting them to share their thoughts with the officer about what they like about spending time in OSHC and what they value most is really, I think a really beautiful part of the process and really shows that you support their agency. So that's me personally, I like that. In terms of examples of community engagement, that was another question that we were asked to think about. One of the really beautiful parts about OSHC is that you will be engaged with your community over a long span of time and with your families especially children might be at your service for 7 years and if they've got multiple children you might have an engagement with a family for decades even depending on how their family forms. And so I think really celebrating those long-term engagements. That's a real strength that OSHC has that not all services get to demonstrate. So really thinking about those strengths and focusing on what you're able to do. You know, talking about the kind of engagement you have with your school community or whether, you know, that's engagement through council or other other kind of programs. So thinking about any joint projects that you work on, any ways that you've worked together with your community to really build your program and really support your children and families and really focusing on those things that have changed the way that you do things really helps us to see that quality in action. In terms of how you demonstrate quality during assessment and rating and how we sort of focus on that. When you get that initial call from the officer, we don't yet have a, you know, a plan as to how the service visit will go. We'll have a rough idea of how long we might spend with you, but we don't have an agenda in terms of what we do and when we do it. So it's really helpful if you can tell us what practises you want to make sure we see. So you know, watching you do afternoon tea, sign in processes, you know, if you do a group meeting or some other gathering, you know, seeing those practises, if there's particular parts of the day that are really important to your routine. Pointing out what those are so we can plan around that. We really want to respond to you and what's happening at your service and when's the best time for us to have quiet conversations and when's the best time for us to see what's happening. So be conscious of that and be really clear with the officer about what you need and what's going to be representative of your service. We want to work with you on that. And then the last little thing and then I'll stop talking is any suggestions I'd share about setup and pack away services. And what I'd like to say about that I guess is that, that is the reality of a lot of OSHC services that we, you know, as a sector, do get the last available space in the school, a space that's often used by other people or isn't desirable. And we're often not given a lot of, I guess ownership, sole ownership over those spaces. So that's the reality and I think what's really helpful is if you can focus on the adaptations you've made to that. So what are the positives? The positives might be that you're able to set up a space that's very responsive to children's changing needs and interests. It might be that children are part of that setup process and they're making choices about what they want their space to look like on a day-to-day basis. It might be, you know, how you've worked with negotiating with the school, advocating for children in terms of what's going to be best for them and you know, how you can build the quality of your program, you know, by being responsive to children's needs within this space. And so really thinking about, you know, how you've worked with that school community and focusing on the strengths as opposed to, "We're not able to do anything because the principal, you know, won't let us," and that sort of thing. So thinking about how you've been creative. Most OSHC have been very creative with their space and so really focusing on those strengths where you can. So hopefully, I've done an okay job answering those questions and I'll hang around if there's any at the end as well too. Thank you.

ALICIA BURKE: Thanks so much, Emily. And look, I could listen to you all day talk about your experiences out there conducting assessment and rating visits. I really do enjoy the examples that you've been able to provide for the participants today and just some additional considerations around the assessment and rating visit. While we are talking about the assessment and rating visits for which there are a couple of questions that have come through around timeframes, which I'll address a little later on in the session. But I'm very pleased to be able, so thank you, Emily. I'm very pleased to be able to introduce you to 2 of our guest speakers today that have generously donated their time to prepare some information for you guys today. So we have Jenny Collins and Kate Gray. So Jenny is from Coogee Care Centre, which is located on the grounds of Coogee Public school and has been there since 1986. It's a non-for-profit registered charity managed by its own parent voluntary committee. Coogee Care Centre is approved for 270 children and offers before and after school care for children of public school and offers vacation care during school holidays, sorry. There's a total of 35 staff in the team which consists of 4 full-time staff, 13 part-time staff and 18 casuals. The service prides itself on its positive working relationship with the school leadership team and staff and together, they share the same values for the community and work collaboratively to encourage inclusivity. Jenny has been in the sector for 23 years after dedicating 10 years to long day care, she then took the assistant coordinator role at Coogee Care and in 2021, Jenny became the services director and nominated supervisor. Over the years, Jenny has gone through many accreditation processes and the assessment and ratings cycles and in 2021, Coogee Care were classified as an exceeding service following their assessment and rating visit. Jenny continues to reflect on how she can grow as a leader and support her team continuously through the assessment and rating process. So that's just a little bit of information about Jenny. And now we have Kate as well. So Eleebana Community Outside School Hours Care is a non-for-profit service managed by an independent voluntary management committee distinct from the P&C located on the grounds of the department school within Lake Macquarie district just south of Newcastle. The service is dedicated to providing a high quality inclusive environment to all children during the school term only. So they do not provide vacation care. The service is approved for up to 150 children per session and the service is staffed by a dedicated team of 3 full-time service leaders, a director, a coordinator, and an educational leader. And then alongside that, 19 part-time educators. The service was rated in July of last year and proudly achieved an exceeding rating in all 7 quality areas. Kate, who has been with the service for 13 years has successfully guided the service through 3 cycles of assessment and rating demonstrating her commitment to enhancing quality provided at the service. So thank you, both, so much for sharing your time with us this morning and to help your colleagues feel ready and prepared I suppose for the assessment and rating cycle. So I'm going to hand over to Jenny. Is there some information you'd like to broadly share about your journey through assessment and rating?

JENNY COLLINS: Hi, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a bit about our journey. I think when it comes to giving a bit of advice and how to be prepared and feel comfortable. I think one thing that it's easy to forget because we get so overwhelmed but it's our opportunity to showcase our service and showcase the amazing things we do. You know, parents just come in and out and we've very much seen as babysitting clubs and no one really knows the background work that everyone in the OSHC sector puts in. So I think having the opportunity as assessment and rating and seeing it as a positive I think is really important. I think being proud and confident in what you do and being confident is very important. I feel like I talked for 2 days straight. our assessment and rating was over 2 days. And I talked and I sometimes, the officer asked to see something and I redirected her elsewhere because I wanted to show off something else. But because it's our opportunity, it's someone coming into your environment and into your home for you to be able to show what you are doing. Have procedures in place that ensures that when that email comes, just be ready. Don't wait till the last minute. And something that both Kate and I very much agree on, and I'm sure a lot of you do, is your staff don't need to be nervous because if your procedures and processes are all in place, it's another day at the centre. They shouldn't be having to put on a show because you should be really confident in what you already do.

ALICIA BURKE: Very well said, Jenny. It's always about feeling confident in what you're doing and the reason why you're doing that. Kate, was there anything more you'd like to add from your perspective when undergoing through?

KATE GRAY: I think that like Jenny's, pretty much like just hit the nail on the head. Like we just have to be confident. I think you said earlier that it's a bit like going for your driver's licence, but to me, it's just like driving a car. Like you don't get into your car every day and feel nervous that the police are going to pull you over for, you know, drinking or speeding and things. You just get in your car and your drive and every day when we come to work and work with children and families and our staff. We've already put those procedures and things in place so there's no reason to feel nervous. It's just like coming to work on a regular day and some days, things don't go as planned but that's just the nature of life, really. So I think that's just really important and to be able to trust in your team and trust in your policies and procedures and that the quality of your work will shine through.

ALICIA BURKE: Yeah. Thanks so much for that, Kate. And look, I might stay with you Kate too. Was there any key challenges you may have faced during the assessment and rating process and how did you respond to any of those challenges within your service?

KATE GRAY: Well I suppose like so previous to last year, we hadn't been rated since 2017 and from going to a lot of network meetings and talking to other services, there was a lot of talk about how the new exceeding themes had really like lifted the bar for services. And a lot of people were sort of saying at the time like, "Oh, you're not going to get exceeding again in any of your areas." And so that made us really anxious. And then we sort of didn't even know where to start with those exceeding themes because we'd never used them before. So I guess what we really focused on was just the meeting criteria. So we just listed out like our key practises. We used the self-assessment guide to just really like, just note down all those things that we really felt were like, where we were meeting like criteria. And then we were able to take a step back and look at those, all of the key, what am I saying? The key, yeah, the key criteria. And we were able to dig a bit deeper and to look at how each of those, how we I embedded it into everyday practise, how we engage the families and the community in that and like what critical reflection we used. So that was the secondary challenge was critical reflection, which I think is a big thing for like a lot of services. So I guess we tried to adopt an approach where we view every routine, every procedure, and every process as a cycle, just like your programming cycle. So with the observations and the implementation and the evaluation. So every time there's a decision to be made or a change be made or people say like, "Oh, now, this is happening, we always look to the like why like not and what we can do to improve that." So I think it helps shift like the perspective of our team. That critical reflection is like a journey. Like it's a long-term journey, not just like a destination. It's not just something that you do once a day or once a week. It should shape and inform all of your practise

ALICIA BURKE: Thanks very much for that Kate. And what about yourself, Jenny? Was there any challenges you may have faced through preparations for the cycle or feeling comfortable that you'd like to share?

JENNY COLLINS: Sure. I guess for us, our service was given our notice in 2020 when a thing called COVID happened and the pandemic hit. And that brought on its own challenges which kept postponing the assessment for us but also in saying that we had a bit of a bumpy patch where we had a few different directors, we had a big staff changeover. So all of those challenges started to kind of come in play. So as much as I said be confident and be proud, there's always going to be the anxiety. It is what it is. You know, you everyone's their own worst critic and I think having to step back and breathe and be like, okay we've just had all these challenges, we need to pull us together. So something we had to do was one step back and breathe and 2, when we looked at our QIP, it wasn't quite where myself as a leader and my 2 IC really felt comfortable for it to be. So we took on the self-assessment and it was quite new at the time. But it was a great opportunity for us to continue to critically reflect and to be able to think about where we were, where we've gotten to, and where we want to go. So using the challenges and trying to turn them around as a positive because it's easy, it's so easy to be like, "This is just crazy and I just want to just cry." And it's so easy to take 7 days a week re-looking back at your self-assessment tool and being like, "Have I put everything I want in there?" So I think one thing I've taken away from the challenges we faced is just to always be prepared. Like I think even Emily mentioned before is the self-assessment tool is not just as a one-off thing, it's to keep using it. So one of the biggest challenges you will face is already diminished by being prepared.

ALICIA BURKE: Definitely. And that's the thing. Obviously, once an assessor comes out to look at the service and undertake the assessment and rating visit, it's really hard to see every single aspect of a service, particularly in OSHC environments. We've got lots of different components of care, lots of different elements and streams of, you know, before school care, after school care and potentially vacation care as well. So did either of you have any advice around how you supported your team, how you supported your educators? We know that in the OSHC environment, you have limited time with your staff. You know, often it's transition between kind of different jobs or different, you know, aspects. So was there anything that either of you had around preparing your staff to understand the process and feel confident?

JENNY COLLINS: I think for here for Coogee Care, I think, you know, we need to understand as leaders as well, assessment and rating doesn't mean the same sometimes to educators that are there 3 hours a week. And you know, it is helping them understand how important their role is. I think once they understand their importance and I think sometimes going through an assessment and rating makes them realise and understand that they're important and what they do is important. So what we needed to do to prepare our staff was first, my 2IC and I had to just go, "Oh my God, we just got our email. Let's just gather ourselves' And you know, let that overwhelming feeling go before we brought it out to the team. Because you don't need them to feel overwhelmed because if they are following your procedures and practises and embedding that philosophy into everything we do, they shouldn't have to do anything different. Someone is coming to watch. And one of their biggest fears I know was, "What happens if I say the wrong thing if they ask me a question?" And so what we did was we did a few like Q&A quizzes for our team that we just sent to them that they could do in their own time. And in those Q&A quizzes, we did a few child protection questions like, are you a mandatory reporter? What does it mean to be a mandatory reporter? What does active supervision look like to you? So little things like that. We ran a staff meeting, which was based on induction, doing induction, all over again so we were all the same page. We had a night where we offered pizza and paid because that's what they love. Where we kind of went through the self-assessment tool with a team of people. And that way, everyone could think about some of the amazing things we did. And we just remember like, we just constantly reminded the team that we're already doing everything we need to be. And it's not about putting on a show for 2 days, it's just being you. And that's the reason why you work here is because we value what you do and what you do is great. So I think giving them that kind of like little lead up but not too much. Because if you give them too much and start going, "We've got assessment and rating. You forgot to wash your heads or you forgot to do this." They start to panic and it's not fair on them, so.

ALICIA BURKE: And look, certainly, I think from an Authorised Officer's perspective as well, you can tell that staff are nervous and educators can get a little bit nervous. And that's the prime time where little mistakes are made is just out of nerves. But what about you, Kate? Was there anything in particular you did to support the team through the process and support that knowledge building?

KATE GRAY: Well, pretty similar to what Jenny was saying. So we have regular team meetings, but one of the tips I'd say is we keep all of our like team meeting minutes and our committee meeting minutes all in the quality areas so that when we are looking to look how we're moving through like our like self-improvement, we can say like, "Okay, we look across like the 3 like last meetings and say we can add that information in." So rather than having to bring up the tool constantly, we have a record that like follows through. So that was really good. Plus then if anybody like misses the meeting, they're able to go back and reread the notes daily, like discussions and reflections. So we give our like staff that time between 2:30 and 3 o'clock to be able to have conversations and like ask questions and discuss things that are going on. And we try to make sure that people from our leadership are actually available to support that as well. And in the time between when they're transitioning to go home as well from the end of the shift, like we have a lot of educators working in a lot of different areas and sometimes, I think that they can feel a bit isolating for them for like an afternoon. So that just having that touch base with like one of the leaders before they leave for the end of shift's really good. Our educational leader poses a general reflective question every week so that the staff would get into the habit or like just have a better, more practise I suppose in like a formal reflection. And I think that if you do that consistently, it actually changes the way that you actually think. It changes your mindset on things. And that's been really good too. So we use like all of the feedback that we get from these reflective questions to actually inform practise and to change things. And I think that also made our educators really feel like they are involved in all of the processes that what they have to say has value and they are the people that are actually working in our service directly with the children day to day. So I think that their knowledge is probably the most valuable like in that. And then yeah, just prepping for the visit. I think Emily might've said like having like inviting people into your service that aren't usually from there. So we do try to host like other services here in our centre because, well, one, we're proud of it and 2, it's nice to be able to hear like what practises they do. And I was just thinking like if you did have like a good relationship with, or maybe even if you don't, like your school principal or a teacher in your school that maybe you could say like, "Oh, we're coming up for assessment and ratings and do you want to come and have a visit of our service? And I'll take you through some things to see what you think." And I think just even them just asking questions and being able to articulate and verbally answer them would be helpful before you have a visit in your service.

ALICIA BURKE: That's fantastic, and I like what you've both been able to draw out was utilising your strengths and being really open and transparent with your team and yourselves around where you are in your journey. That's definitely come across nice and strong. And have either of you got some suggestions for participants around you know, how to engage families and maybe how to engage their local community? We know that it is really, really challenging for us services. It's generally very quick. Pick up, drop off kind of environment. Was there anything in particular that you may have implemented that allowed you to get that feedback to be able to reflect on?

KATE GRAY: I think me and Jenny were talking about this before and saying because we are both community managed services with parent involvement in the actual management of the service, it's a little bit easier for us to come at that to say like, because they're pretty much involved in all of the decision making and their opinions sort of, you know, inform what's happening. But in terms of getting like daily feedback on like the program or our like menu, the coordinator and educational leader introduced like a little QR code like on the bottom of our programs and afternoon team menus and if parents scan it, it just goes to a really quick like 3-question like survey about what they think about the program or what they thought about afternoon tea this week. And they also share that link on our Facebook page when they post like the menu and the program. And I think having that available and they parents know it's just like one or 2 questions they can just go like, "Oh, that was great." "Oh, my kids didn't like that." People have gotten to the habit of doing that and we do actually get a lot of like feedback like via that. We also invite anybody that's interested in the service to attend like our committee meetings, even if they're not part of the committee. There is some meetings that are closed for like confidentiality or for things, but for the most part, we invite people to come and like listen and we invite our staff to come as well like to attend like a committee meeting in the time that they're with us so that they have a really good understanding about how the service works as well. So it's hard, it's hard with parents. They're very, very busy. A lot of things have happened organically in our service. Like one child said that their mother was like an excellent cook and could she come and share this family recipe with us? And then because that mother came in, other kids were saying, "Oh, my grandma knows how to cook this thing." And so we did have like a run of like all of these like family members coming in and cooking for our service like with the children and that was fantastic. But I think sometimes, you just have to ask. our educational leader is wonderful at she'll chase down parents and say like, "Oh, so and so said that you like make these amazing biscuits, would you like to come in and make them one day?" And people sort of, oh, they're bit unsure but we make it really comfortable for them when like we'd never leave them with the children and we set it sort of up like a little cooking demonstration and it's been a really good part of our program but it wouldn't happen unless we asked, unless we, you know, encourage people to join in. So yeah, this is a couple of things.

ALICIA BURKE: What about you, Jenny?

JENNY COLLINS: Very similar. We use our gate as our pickup zone. So one thing we have worked on in the past as well is using like a whiteboard with a question of the day. And so why they're waiting for their child because usually you know, you can call a child on a walkie talkie and they're busy finishing their Hama bead so that child's not coming for the next 7 minutes and there's a parent standing there waiting. So you know, having a question there in front of them just on a whiteboard with some whiteboard markers. We also do quite a few community events. I've joined with our school P&C, although we are not a part of the school P&C, but we've collaborated this year to be more as one and well, when we have school and community functions we try to do them together. So having like someone, like some staff going around with like a little questionnaire trying to get more people involved. But I also think, and to be honest, we don't do it often enough but get the kids involved, use those kids. Those senior kids running around with a notepad and a pen asking questions at the gate. You most probably get more from them asking than us asking. We've done the social medias, we've got the social media, we've got the emails and you know the click responses are getting smaller and smaller every year. People are busier, people are really busy and we get it. So trying to make it that it's just on the spot and it's a one-word answer. And I guess the other thing is a lot of the time when you do get an email from the parent, we do get the occasional lovely emails but it might be one parent, you know, complaining or not happy about something and you don't want that to always be the feedback. You want to see the positives as well. So I think using the kids in your environment is really important.

ALICI BURKE: Fantastic. Lots of wonderful suggestions there and it's great that you both acknowledge that being run through a voluntary parent committee, obviously you've got access in a different way for that level of engagement but also the forward planning of how to make it easy and blend in with the available time that families might have. And look, the last question I have for both of you was, was there any support that you accessed either prior to your visit, after your visit, during your assessment and rating visit cycle and yeah, what was the level of support that you might have reached out for?

JENNY COLLINS: Okay, I'll go. So the self-assessment was fairly new for us or well even for the sector I guess, when we did that. So we did use quite a few different networks and I think one thing that if you're a director or a coordinator, being in these positions in management can feel really lonely at the best of times, you do feel quite alone unless you have a really good networking team around you. So for me here in the eastern suburbs, we do an eastern region meeting once a term and we all have terms of hosting and ours is coming up shortly. But people using each other. You know, we have a few directors that come from P and like under the school P&C or their own P&C or we have private owners as well of you know, small services and big services. So we've got a really good range of directors in our network and being able to use each other as mentors, a lot of the time our regional meetings are more of a counselling session where we all just sit there and rock back and forth going, "Yup, we agree." But when it came to assessment and rating, we were lucky. I was very lucky that there was a couple of services around me that had just been through it. And because I'd already built those relationships with those people, I did get a lot of help. The other thing I have to say is using network. If you use network that we had a conference just before ours and one of the things, one of the sessions at that conference was assessment and preparing for assessment and rating and we took away a lot and it was fresh for us. Pauline, I know you're there in the background but Pauline is not only an amazing mentor to help you understand things that, because some things in the self-assessment can sound really wordy and trying to break it down just to make you understand and be like, "Oh, actually no, this is how we do what we do" and that's what they meant in that question or in that element or standard. Pauline is amazing for that and she's also amazing for your mental health when you're like, "This is crazy, I'm really scared. What's going to happen?" And the guidance is great. So I think, you know, there are the stuff that department do and offer. I did use the support service as well over the phone, but I think for me personally, I am a people's person and for me being able to talk to my networks and other directors in my area and they overlooked mine, you know, I'd send off my self-assessment and, you know, they'd read it for me and say, "Oh, maybe you could move this element over to this standard and that sounds really good over here" or things like that. So I think being able to really use those that support network is really important.

KATE GRAY: I'd agree. I'd agree. Like if you can find a network of people and like so where members of network of community activities as well and being able to go to conferences and to do training is a great way to actually meet people like from your area or not even people that are from your area, just people that you have are like-minded with and/or have a similar service that you can, you know, you can talk to just about anything, finances, budgets, whatever, has been really, really good. I'd say we used the guide to the NQF like pretty much like a bible, like we'd like bang it down on the table at every meeting and we had lots of tabs and things on that, lots of fact sheets, all the comms that come from the department. I suppose what I want people to maybe be mindful of is getting information from not from direct sources or not from like, or training companies and things that might not be accredited or might not have as good links and strong links with direct sources. So like the department and things. I know that there's a lot of people out there that are running training sessions and things, but you want to really make sure that that information is like up-to-date and accurate. And so I think sticking with like the peak body or sticking, you know, the actual horse's mouth, let's go the department and ACECQA and things is really, really important as well.

ALICIA BURKE: Definitely. Well look, thank you both so much for sharing your expertise and sharing your advice out to everybody today. And as I said earlier, it's really great to see that you have that high level of collaboration not only with each other as colleagues in the OSHC sector, but really that openness to work with lots of different people to help support the journey through the assessment and rating cycle. So I really appreciate your time today. Now any participants who have any particular questions for either Jenny or Kate, I'm happy for you to pop them in the Q&A section so as we move into the live panel, there might be some specific information. And I will confirm with Jenny and Kate after the session if they'd be happy to share their contact details so that some participants might be able to reach out and get some mentorship or guidance from you specifically. So again, thank you so much for taking the time. I know it's, you know, not easy to stand up in front of so many people so yeah really appreciate your time this morning sharing with us. So we're entering into our live Q&A panel now and I'm pleased to be running this with Pauline. I'm just waiting for, there you are. I've been able to see you through the session. So as I mentioned earlier in the session, we did have quite a lot of pre-submitted questions that have come through. But firstly, I would like to thank Pauline for advocating for a OSHC-specific session today. We've worked really collaboratively to look at some common trends that are happening within the OSHC sector and some common feedback that's received from both ends through network and also through the department. So again, Pauline, thank you so much for your time. Your wealth of knowledge and experience and advocacy for OSHC is absolutely fantastic. I appreciate your time spent for this next little session as well. So there have been obviously a couple of questions that been answered throughout the Q&A panel. So for anybody who is looking in the Q&A section, you'll see that they've been published so you'll be able to see some common responses through there. I'm just going to grant some information around some of the pre-submitted questions. And it's interesting when Kate was mentioning a little around the exceeding practises. So exceeding is a common topic that lots of people really do want specific information on exceeding. And it more does sit with how do I achieve exceeding as opposed to the actual journey. So as Kate mentioned earlier, it was really looking initially at that foundation level and then progressing through to see and understand those individual themes and how they correlate to practise in the service. So obviously today, it is quite difficult to go through specific exceeding themes because it is contextual to your service and the information, the context around you know, your different operating environments and things like that. But as you heard earlier from Vanessa, we have the Continuous Improvement Team that will be able to assist you in looking through your key practises. So they're not a team that will write your key practises for you or tell you exactly what that formula is to achieve exceeding because it is a continuum and it's a long journey throughout those different areas. So I have noted that we did receive quite a lot of pre-submitted questions around how to achieve exceeding or what are the exceeding themes and it's just a little bit difficult to provide that broad advice at the moment given that it would relate directly to your service. But I do have a question that's come in that I think Pauline, you would be fantastic to help support. So we've had some questions around how a service can feel prepared for a change of management? So whether it be a change of parent representatives within the school or the management committee. Is there any advice that you might have for services in preparing for that?

PAULINE O'KANE: Thanks to everybody for attending this great session today and I want to really acknowledge the department for putting on this session because as we know, everybody's time poor. But I also want to acknowledge all the ooshys out there for the great work that they do in making children's time out of school really important and valuable. I know personally, it's my time out of school that when I was growing up that's made me into the person that I am now. It's all been in those out-of-school activities which were memorable, skill-building, and playful. So yes in outside the school our services, we have a lot of changes in management because of the structures. And how do you go about bringing those management on board so that they're clear about their responsibilities so that they can better support you as educators? I think Kate and Jenny have really articulated this well. It's about giving short bites of information. So when we have a change of management, one of the things that network does increasingly is actually have a webinar where we actually talk through the roles and responsibilities of those approved providers. We also send out a weekly newsletter to our members and we highlight chunks of information that would be relevant for the approved provider. I think when people are engaged in that approved provider role, they're a little bit detached from the service operations unless they're, you know, obviously, a parent user which many of our management structures are and they get feedback from the horse's mouth in those situations because children talk about their experiences. But there is so many great ways to navigate communicating with those people that are in management. And I guess when I look at communication, it's like ooshys, what is the best way to communicate with those management people? Some people are social media freaks, some people are, they like a little email, some people want a phone conversation. Use every method of communication that enhances their knowledge. There is also some great information on the Commonwealth of Australia's website about approved provider and there's also great information on our New South Wales government's website. But you, as educators, have to break that down. They're not going to know where to find that information, they're not not going to know about ACECQA. It's really up to you to put the little cheat sheet together to actually empower them to get used using those sites and finding that.

ALICIA BURKE: It looks like we may have lost Pauline for a moment. So what I might do is go into some further questions until Pauline comes back to us. So some of the other pre-submitted questions that we had was around the documentation, oh there you are, you're back Pauline.

PAULINE O'KANE: Oh yeah.

ALICIA BURKE: Just dropped out.

PAULINE O'KANE: I think I've articulated ways that people can engage for those changes of management. There's no one-size-fits-all. I guess you have to find out what is the best way to communicate with those people that are involved.

ALICIA BURKE: Definitely. And look, we all know the challenges when you have voluntary parent committees as well, particularly around time and expectation on sitting on some of those committees. So really appreciate your expertise there, Pauline. Now look I'll move into a couple of the pre-submitted questions and then also go through some of the questions we've received during this session. But as I was just about to explain, we often get the question around the documentation requirements for OSHC services. So we know that under, oops, echoey. We know that under Regulation 74, there is a requirement for children over preschool age that there is an evaluation of wellbeing and development. In New South Wales, we have a program level approach which actually means there is no requirement to have individual observations of children and their learning. However, you would need to demonstrate how you're reflecting groups of children. Group interests, recreational suggestions, but only in groups. There's no requirement under the legislation to make sure that you hold individual learning records for each of the children that attend. It is also important to note that the assessment or the well, evaluation of children's wellbeing is supposed to be linked through to the Approved Learning Framework. So the My Time, Our Place, Version 2. So making sure that there's a good understanding of the framework and how that fits in. Now, there have been some previous ECE Connect sessions around the My Time, Our Place, so the introduction of the version 2. And then also a deep dive into equity inclusion and high expectations. So there was a session in June of last year and one in December and that was facilitated through our early childhood outcomes section within the department. We often also get questions around how can a service provide feedback after their visit? And there are multiple ways that you can provide feedback to the department about the visit. So any regulatory visit that occurs, you will receive a post visit survey. So this is for a compliance visit, a once off or a spot check that most people refer to, or your assessment and rating visit. And those surveys are sent immediately after the visit. So it's generated once we complete our side in the department, make sure we've completed that record and you'll receive that survey. Now those surveys are kept confidential and the information provided either positive or negative is evaluated by a separate person. So I did just want to reiterate that the information in there is not provided directly to the Authorised Officer. It is provided to a third party. So we have members in the department that review those post-visit surveys, collate some information, and obviously work on our own continuous improvement to improve our practise as well. Second to that, there is an opportunity for you to provide, if you had a visit that you needed to talk about and it needed to be escalated up a bit further, there is an opportunity for you to provide feedback in the form of a complaint. And this might be about the Authorised Officer, it might be about the process, it could be about anything related to our department function and there is a clear process in place where you're able to lodge a complaint and that is investigated. Now the people that investigate those complaints sit outside of the assessment and rating cycle. So again the Authorised Officer is not advised of the complaint made until the process has been completed. This allows there to be transparency around the task of the assessing, you know, administering the quality rating for the service and to make sure that that information isn't sort of crossed over. So I did just want to mention that because a lot of people sometimes, we hear don't want to provide feedback because they feel it will have a negative impact on their rating. They weren't quite happy but they couldn't really explain exactly what it was that was making them feel uncomfortable during the visit. And look, we recommend that you let us know, you know, from a department point of view, we need to know the feedback that's happening out there so we can address and improve our practises our end. And we certainly don't want services having a less desired experience and sharing that without us having the opportunity to see if we can try and fix that. Now Pauline, you might have any some further information to add. Do you have an ability where services might be able to raise concerns directly with you if they are concerned?

PAULINE O'KANE: Yeah, I mean, often, we do get calls when people are feeling uncomfortable. Not often. We get sometimes calls when there is an issue that arises through assessment and rating. And we happily support and guide that leadership team to take the appropriate action. And I really appreciate, Alicia, you clarifying about the survey because I think there has been a little bit of a myth that people think that that goes back to the Authorised Officer. So I think that's a really great thing to clarify. And we were always happy to support people when they're going through assessments and rating. Sometimes, they don't understand the question that's being asked or the documentation that's being required and we can guide people to where those resources are or they might have it labelled as something else. So we can break that down with services. I just wanted to go back to that question with documentation because I have had the privilege of visiting so many fantastic OSHCers. and I guess we've got into a phase where we're over documenting. And I'd really like people to draw back with their teams, what is meaningful documentation that you can use to really enhance your quality improvement journey? It's not documenting just for the sake of documenting. It's, what am I noticing? Why am I noticing that? And what are the changes that I can initiate or work towards to make an improvement? And I think when people look at it like that, we don't need to charter lots of documentation about children and repetitive activities that they're doing every day. It's what is actually extraordinary and meaningful that we can use. And I think that really helps guide educators who want to be engaging and interacting with children and not necessarily writing lots of stuff about children.

ALICIA BURKE: Exactly, Pauline. And look, I can see in the questions that we have, there are quite a lot of questions around the documentation expectations for OSHC. And you know, so that's reflective of the questions that we received before the session and now. And look, when I mentioned earlier about reflecting on those group interests, it's about if a group of children are coming to you and saying, "We'd like to play soccer today and that's an activity," then documenting that it may have come from a voting system or a group, these are group interests for children. There may also be interest within the school environment. So I know, you know, when collectibles and things like that are happening, that's something where the children may want to build on or particular team sports and games and things like that. So it's definitely an opportunity to dig a bit deeper specifically into documentation for OSHC. So I would definitely welcome the feedback because I'm sure I could spend more than 30 minutes just on OSHC documentation. So I did just want to pull that out.

PAULINE O'KANE: Also, it's not necessarily the activities that you've planned in your program, what are all the incidentals that happen, the spontaneity, things that happen on the sideline. Because sometimes, they're the most interesting things that happen in our session. And they're often the things that we don't talk to the Authorised Officer about. How children are self-motivated and organise a great game or organise a great cubby-building session and it's initiated by the children and it's not in our program. We've just provided them with the tools and the resources and how do you showcase that during assessment and rating. All those little incidentals that are great learning for children. Because they've initiated it, they've controlled it, they've enjoyed it, they talk about it for months later. Remember when we built the cubbies or whatever it is. So remember to document those incidentals.

ALICIA BURKE: Definitely. And look, there were also a couple of questions around children under school age attending OSHC services. So there is a requirement in the legislation that the learning and development is linked obviously to the Early Years Learning Framework and those children do need to have some individual evaluations of learning in their recreation time. But it's proportionate to, you know, the expectation of those children attending after school care programs or before school care programs would be proportionate. But like I said, it's obviously a really hot topic so I'm sure I can work collaboratively with Pauline and we can run some more detailed sessions specific to the documentation. I have seen some questions come up around a partial reassessment visit. Can this still allow a service to achieve an exceeding rating? So as I mentioned really early in the piece, there is an exceeding pathway so no services disadvantaged within when you're selected for a partial reassessment visit. So there is always an opportunity that would allow the service to achieve exceeding. And more specifically, if an area was selected, wasn't selected, sorry, and the service were aiming to achieve exceeding in that quality area, then we can look at those on a case to case basis. But there is always an opportunity. We're not disadvantaging anybody to achieve that. And likewise with the excellent rating as well, we know that, you know, there are services that are striving for those ratings. So that's definitely something that we do. We've had a follow up question for you Pauline, just around can the details of the network meeting where Jenny and Kate are attending in July, please, be shared with participants. So that would be fantastic.

PAULINE O'KANE: That's our annual conference. And it's one of the things that I want to say to our sector. It is really important that we come together collectively to have these professional conversations. We have an annual conference at network, everybody is welcome to attend and it's on July the 26th. Friday, July the 26th. Because we need the voice of OSHC to be collective. We also need it to be a powerful voice. Because sometimes, we get lost in the general early childhood conversation and we are a really critical and important part of that sector. And when we come together, great things come out of it and the Deputy Secretary is actually opening the conference. So again, it really shines a lens on OSHC and the important work that happens in out-of-school time with children. It's a really critical time and period of their life. And it should be recognised and valued as such.

ALICIA BURKE: Definitely. And look, we have gone slightly over time and I'd just like to think the colleagues that we have from the Department of Education who have been busily answering those questions that have come through. Again, thank you to all the participants for submitting your questions. What we've attempted to do is build all of those questions into the content that was provided today to just give you some insights, how to feel ready around the improvements to assessment and rating and just have some time together to share the journey from our services and our support networks. Again, thank you, Jenny and Kate for your time today to share from your perspective how you prepared and how you felt ready for assessment and rating. Again, Pauline, thank you so much for working with us to create this session for everybody. And thank you, Emily for sharing your expertise as an Authorised Officer and an ooshy at heart. So thank you so much everybody for your time. We look forward to connecting at later sessions and we would welcome any feedback that you have to make sure that we can really give you the information that you need to help support you. So, and thank you, Vanessa, actually. How did I forget you? Thank you, Vanessa, for sharing information about the Continuous Improvement Team and the self-assessment approach and Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal. So please have a look in the published questions section. You'll see the links through to individual contact details and how to register for a technical demonstration. And we look forward to connecting with you again. Thank you so much. Thank you.

PAULINE O'KANE: Thank you, Alicia, for pulling this together. I appreciate it and I'm sure-

ALICIA BURKE: Thanks, Pauline.

PAULINE O'KANE: Let's build on it. Thank you.

ALICIE BURKE: Not a problem. Thank you so much. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you.