Welcome to our Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal instructional video series, where we'll take you through some of the main features of the portal and how to use them.

The Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal enables services to record, track and update their self-assessment cycle and quality improvement processes in a live online environment. Through the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal, early childhood education and care services record their philosophy and reflect through their regulatory compliance, strengths and key practices, documenting areas for improvement and setting goals as part of the service’s quality improvement process. This allows the service to measure their practices against the National Quality Standard and alongside the requirements of the Education and Care Services, National Law and Regulations.

When a service is contacted by the New South Wales Regulatory Authority to advise of the assessment and rating process commencing, they will be able to easily release a copy of the information contained in their Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning portal via email to the authorised officer for review prior to the visit. It is important to note that access to your information is determined by who you give permission to enter your account.

Please be aware that no operational staff within the department can access your self-assessment and quality improvement planning information in the portal, and the sharing of information at appropriate times is governed by the administrator of the account. When you submit your information at the time of assessment and rating, an email will be created and sent to both the service and the department with a copy of your service context and self-assessment information attached.

The Continuous Improvement Team was established to support services in their engagement with self-assessment processes and quality improvement planning, which includes the use of the Self-Assessment Quality Improvement Planning Portal. We would welcome the opportunity to guide you through a support session, or answer any questions you may have in relation to the self-assessment, quality improvement plans or the portal.

Please contact 1800 619 113 and ask to speak with an authorised officer in the Continuous Improvement Team, or you can email the team at ecequalitysupport@det.nsw.edu.au

In this video, we'll take you through the steps of signing into the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning portal.

If you have previously created a Department of Education login for the Transition to School Digital Statement process, you will need to use the same user ID and password to access the self-assessment portal.

Click the login button on the home page and enter your department login details to access the self-assessment portal. If you have not registered for an account for Transition to School Digital Statements, you can easily create an account for the self-assessment portal by clicking on the create account button.

This page will take you through the registration process with clear information provided to help you register your account. You will require two forms of identification to complete this process, and once registration is complete, you will need to verify your portal account details through the service email registered in NQAITS before you can access the self-assessment portal.

You will then be prompted to set a password. After the registration is complete, return to the landing page, select login, and enter your username and password to access the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal.

Let's have a look at how to register your service and add a staff member so they can access your self-assessment portal. Once you've logged into your account, you can register your service by clicking on the ‘Register Service’ button in the top right hand corner of the screen.

Here, you will search for your service using your Service Approval Number, and your service will be displayed on the screen. Ensure this is your service and if the details are correct, click on the register button. You will receive an email to the service email registered in NQAITS with a pin code. Once verified, please allow up to 15 minutes for the service to be displayed on your portal home page.

If you wish to provide self-assessment portal access to a staff member, select the educator's button on the right hand side of the service name, which opens the educator's dashboard. All stakeholders who have previously been given access to your service portal are listed on this page.

Once the educator's dashboard loads, click on the red ‘add educator’ button on the right hand side of the screen. If the staff member already has a Department of Education account created for Transition to School Digital Statements, you can use their username and register that person by selecting ‘Yes’, and completing the remaining information.

If the staff member does not have a Department of Education account, you will need to create a new account for them by selecting ‘No’, and adding the information as requested. Identification, verification, is not required for staff being added in this manner. You can add as many staff members or stakeholders as you would like to access your Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal.

Remember, once given access, they will have the ability to add or edit any data that is recorded. A person can easily be removed if required by returning to the educator dashboard, locating the staff member you would like to remove, clicking the ellipsis on the right hand side of the name and selecting remove. When adding or removing staff, please be aware that it can take up to 15 minutes for changes to display on your self-assessment dashboard.

We'll now give you an overview of the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal dashboard. To access the Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Planning Portal dashboard, click on your service name to open the related dashboard.

The dashboard is divided into four sections, including the top menu, Service Overview, Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan, and the To Do list. The top menu has four shortcuts you can access from any page within the portal to navigate back to the dashboard, view previous assessment and rating documents such as your reports and service certificate, access useful links including our Self-assessment for quality improvement page and ACECQA resources, and open the portal help guide.

The useful links and the portal help guide will open in a new tab. The Service Overview section contains three tabs: Service Details and Provider Details, both of which hold information transferred directly from NQAITS and Service Philosophy, which has a textbox where you can enter your philosophy.

Your current service rating is displayed on the right hand side in the Service Details tab. The Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan section also has three tabs: The Law and Regulations, where you can indicate whether your service is compliant with the requirements of the National Law and Regulations relevant to your service type. Key Practices, where you can identify key practices currently occurring at your service, and how these practices meet the National Quality Standard and Improvement Plan, where you can plan future goals and improvement areas linked to the National Quality Standard.

Please refer to the ‘Using the Self-Assessment Improvement Plan section’ video for further information on using each tab. The To Do List section displays any actions you must complete during the assessment and rating process. Please refer to using the To Do list video for further information on using this section.

In this video, we'll focus on how to navigate the improvement plan section of the portal. The Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan section has three tabs. Law and Regulations, Key Practices and Improvement Plan areas.

Let's start with the Law and Regulations. To add information or edit your entries relating to the Law and Regulations, click on the Law and Regulations tab. Click the corresponding open button for the quality area that you would like to work in. A table with the relevant sections of the Law and Regulations for that quality area will load on your browser.

Here you can reflect on your current practice and indicate whether you feel that your service is currently compliant or non-compliant against each line. If you select non-compliant, there is a text box at the base of the page where you will enter steps being taken to immediately rectify this non-compliance.

Any time you make changes in an area, click the save button at the top or base of the page. A green ‘Save Successful’ message will appear at the top of your screen if the information you have entered has saved successfully. Click the ‘Preview’ button to download a PDF with the information you have entered into the Law and Regulations tab for that quality area, which you can share with stakeholders or save as a version for your own records.

Let's move back to the dashboard and have a look at the Key Practices tab. Once selected, the Key Practices tab has the same functionality as the Law and Regulations tab. Simply select the corresponding open button for the quality area you would like to work in, and enter your key practices. Next to the quality area heading at the top of the page is a button. Click on this to open a summary of the quality area for your easy reference.

Navigate to each standard within a quality area using the relevant buttons in the top left side of your screen. Download and save a copy of the key practices you have entered into that quality area by selecting the preview option. Again, this will allow you to download a PDF with the information you have entered into the Key Practices tab for that quality area. Please remember to click on ‘Save’ before you leave the screen if you have made any changes, and click on ‘dashboard’ to return to the dashboard page. Improvement plan areas is the final tab in this area. Once selected, the Improvement Plan tab also has the same functionality as the two previous tabs. Select the open button for the corresponding quality area you would like to work in to engage with in quality improvement planning.

To add a goal for improvement, click on the ‘Add Improvement Plan’ button above the table. The Improvement Plan screen reflects the current planning format of the New South Wales Self-Assessment working document. Here you can enter the relevant details for the goal you would like to work towards.

On this screen you can also indicate the current status of the goal, which can be updated as you work towards the goal’s progress. Select ‘save’ and this goal will appear in the table on the Improvement Plan screen. To edit a goal, simply click on the green update button or pencil icon at the end of the row you would like to update. This will open all fields for you to add or change information, update, add progress notes, and change the status.

When finished, click on the ‘save’ button or the tick icon at the end of the row to save any changes before moving away from this page. You can move through the pages at the base of the screen under the table, or select the number of goals you would like to see on the page by dropping down the box and selecting your preferred number.

To find a specific goal based on information you've entered in the table, type a key word or phrase in the search bar at the top right of the page. All goals that contain the key word or phrase will appear in the table as you type. Alternatively, you can use the arrow sort icon to sort the selected column into either ascending or descending alphabetical or numeric order.

As with all sections, select the preview button to download and save the PDF version of the improvement plan you have recorded for that quality area.

Once you return to the dashboard, you can download and save a copy of the full document containing information entered for all quality areas in each of the tabs. Click on the ‘Download Full Preview’ button in the top right hand corner of the Self-Assessment Improvement Plan section to download a PDF version of the document, which can then be saved to your computer and shared, or used for version control.

This video will focus on the To Do list function and how to use it. The To Do list displays any assessment and rating related tasks or actions that require your attention. While you will continue to receive notifications via email, the task will also be listed here, so you are prompted to take relevant action through the portal.

Example of tasks include submitting your service context and self-assessment forms at the time of assessment and rating, completing the post visit survey following your assessment and rating visit, or sending feedback on your draft report. You can easily see if there is a task outstanding that requires your attention.

The table displays the details of the task, required submission date and the current status. An uncompleted action will show a status of pending. To action a task, click on the blue action button.

On the next screen, you will then be prompted through each stage of the task. Once you have completed and submitted the task and returned to the dashboard, the blue action button will be greyed out, indicating the task has been completed. The status will change from pending to submitted. When an email confirming your upcoming assessment and rating visit is sent to you, all information recorded in the portal will be copied over to the related task in the To Do list.

You will notice the Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan section will be greyed out at that time and therefore not accessible. This is to support you to make changes or enter additional information through the task in the to do list, ensuring that an up-to-date copy of your Self-Assessment and Quality Improvement Plan will be sent to the department prior to your visit.

When you click submit, any editing made will be merged back into the Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan section of the portal for you to continue to use as per usual and this area will then be accessible to you again.