Our top 5 tips to calmly surviving assessment and rating.Assessment and Rating is approaching; you know you will be given notice soon or even worse you have been given notice! All Early Childhood Educator know how incredibly stressful it is around assessment and rating as well as nerve racking, chaotic and down right time consuming! That’s why we have come together to develop this guide that will help prepare you get through your next assessment and rating with ease. When preparing for Assessment and Rating we recommend you to; 1. Divide and conquer - This is where quality leadership comes into play, the ability to delegate task to members of your team through out the year will ensure that each task is not over looked, and no stress is required when you are given notice. Priority gearing is something most leaders, nominated supervisors and directors quickly come to realise around A&R time as we have a realisation that we’ve unintentionally put things on the back burner that are now high priority. Ensuring your priority gearing is set in a positive direction will allow you to ensure tasks are not forgotten. 2. Trust your team Leaders. Each team should have strong reciprocal relationships in place, therefore placing the trust into your team throughout the year and building a strong team presence will assist in taking away any stress relating to what the Assessor will see with the team on the day; leaders need to believe and know their team will follow all policies and procedures no matter what.
3. Technology is your friend - apart from being a fabulously sustainable approach, there are so many approaches that can makes ones life so much easier and allow you to focus on other areas within the service such as being with the children. Some examples you could use are using;online ccms software helping submit attendances automatically. And to help with one step further, a software that allow parents to sign in digitally- therefor even less work for youParent portals where real collaboration can occur with families on a daily basis- this is wonderful evidence to show how you collaborate with families and value them.Programming online where you can show how you allow families access to children learning, provide feedback on the program and be part of the learning processIf you have reflected on this and said oh we don’t do that, perhaps technology is a direction for your services not so distant future. 4. Be organised Know your strengths Time management Embedding into your daily routine
5. Finally embrace the day. Make your assessor feel welcome and at ease, just like you would your staff members and families. Remember that the assessor is there to do a job (not eat you alive) and their day could be made so much easier with a calm space and a tea! Assessment and Rating is to help you grow as a service and allow you to move forward. take on the feedback in a positive manner, utilise it as your next 12 month goals and enjoy the process.