Pioneering the quality journey: a case study of a childcare centre undertaking their first review

Abstract

The resource document The Quality Journey, was distributed to New Zealand early childhood services (ECS) at the end of 1999. Some professional development was made available by the Ministry of Education through contractors to support the use of this document to promote the implementation of quality improvement systems. This case study explores what was involved for a childcare centre using The Quality Journey resource document to undertake a self review or quality improvement process for the first time. The researcher is a professional development adviser working with the centre as part of a 'whole-centre' professional development programme. Through the use of teachers' voices the study describes the resources the centre drew on to be positioned to begin a journey towards improving practice, and details of the review give some insight to these teachers' experiences. Pre- and post-project interviews with the teachers, and tape recordings of the meetings during the analysis and evaluation parts of the review, give an insight to the process. The centre's review was of their programme planning system in particular how it was working for the 'extension' session they provided for the older children. The outcomes of the review impacted on the teachers in terms of their personal teaching style, their team work and the effect on children's learning. The factors which seemed necessary for implementing a quality improvement system were more complex than The Quality Journey describes. In particular the centre's strategic plan and clear goals for the centre were significant drivers for this centre. As well, the leadership of the centre supervisor emerged as highly significant as she was instrumental in initiating the professional development project, co-ordinating the review and motivating the team by ensuring opportunities were available for the data collection to take place. Her skills were crucial to the initiation, implementation and completion of the project. The teachers' experiences corroborated and supported other studies of centres using The Quality Journey. There was support for the research cycle approach used, and the benefit of having 'hard' data to reflect on. The project showed strong support for outside facilitation of a resource document to enable teachers to explore the value and process of a new document. The value of the self-study approach to defining and measuring quality was endorsed.