GUIDANCE FOR AUTHORISED OFFICERS ASSESSMENT AND … Final.pdf3 | P a g e . Guidance for Authorised...

GUIDANCE FOR AUTHORISED OFFICERS ASSESSMENT AND RATING REPORT WRITING

April 2014

2 | P a g e Guidance for Authorised Officers – Assessment and Rating Report Writing

Contents Assessment and rating reports .................................................................................................................. 3

Objectives .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Report writing guidelines........................................................................................................................... 3

Collecting and using evidence ................................................................................................................... 4

What makes quality evidence? ................................................................................................................. 5

Deciding if the service has met an element .............................................................................................. 6

Presenting and evaluating evidence at the standard level ........................................................................ 6

Quality area level summary ..................................................................................................................... 10

Minor adjustment notes .......................................................................................................................... 10

Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) notes .................................................................................................... 10

Compliance notes .................................................................................................................................... 11

Assessment and rating summary ............................................................................................................. 11

Style guide ............................................................................................................................................... 14


Assessment and rating reports

Under section 136 of the Education and Care Services National Law, the regulatory authority must give written notice to the approved provider of an approved education and care service of the outcome of the rating assessment and the rating levels for that service.

This notification is presented in the form of an assessment and rating report.

The goals of the report are to provide:

• an assessment of the education and care service against the National Quality Standard (NQS) and the National Regulations

• the reasons for rating the service at each level • support for the on-going quality improvement of the education and care service.

Objectives

This guidance has been prepared to help:

• authorised officers write accurate, evaluative summaries of the evidence they have collected • ensure that each approved provider receives a high quality report that is easy to read,

reflects each service’s unique characteristics, and clearly identifies the areas where that service is meeting, exceeding or performing below the NQS

• ensure that assessment and rating reports are consistently presented in a professional way that reflects positively on the regulatory authority and builds confidence in the National Quality Framework (NQF).

Report writing guidelines

Good practice report writing

An effective report is easy to follow and understand. The report needs to be constructive and be written in plain English.

The content should be clear and direct, and reflect the language of the approved learning frameworks (e.g. Early Years Learning Framework; My Time, Our Place – Framework for School Age Care in Australia) and the NQF.

Presenting your evidence and justifications effectively and consistently will assist providers, educators and staff to understand why the service has been rated in a certain way.

High quality report writing will also build understanding about the requirements of the NQS and reduce requests for first tier reviews.

A simple formula to apply to report writing is the four Cs:

Correct

• Errors and inaccuracies cause confusion for the reader and detract from the overall purpose of the writing

• Ensure you have accurately presented evidence.

Clear

• Use every day professional language, without

jargon • Use iterative writing: write, review and revise.


Concise

• Use short sentences and make sure all words used are there for a reason

• Avoid repetition.

Consistent

• Use consistent language • Employ consistent formatting.

To help contribute to a consistent presentation and style of reports, a style guide is included at the back of this document.

Collecting and using evidence

Evidence is the information you gather about a service that you use to make your rating decision. It is important that evidence is objective and factual.

Evidence will be collected using the following methods and, where possible, should be classified according to how it was collected:

• Observe - things that you observed first-hand. You will observe what children, families, educators, co-ordinators and staff members did (for example, engaging in caring, friendly and respectful interactions).

• Discuss - things that someone within the service has told you happens. You may engage with the key contact person, educators, co-ordinators and family day care educator assistants or staff members about the practices within the service.

• Sight - things that can indicate what happens, such as records, displays, written work. You may sight documentation required by the National Law and National Regulations, as well as other documentation that supports particular practices at the service.

In addition to recording evidence in the instrument, it may be appropriate to use other evidence to support your rating decision and help when writing your report. For example, it is important to refer to the service’s Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) in the assessment and rating process.

Taking photographs can help document parts of the service. You may find it helpful to take photographs of parts of the service, such as its physical environment or information displayed on walls, to support what you have noted in the instrument. Remember, there can be sensitivities around taking photographs of children. You should refer to the Operational Policy Manual (OPM) for guidance around taking photographs in education and care services, as well as all relevant codes of conduct and practice in place at your regulatory authority. It is essential that when photographs are taken, they are properly labelled and referenced.

Your report should outline the evidence you have gathered about the service and the evidence should support your rating decisions. When writing your report, you should refer to the evidence you gathered during your assessment. It may help to go back over the evidence you collected after writing your report, to ensure that the evidence you gathered is appropriately reflected in your rating decisions. Revisiting the evidence you collected after writing your report may also help you identify the types of information that you are gathering that is not being used in your decisions. This will assist in identifying the most effective information to collect in future assessment visits.


What makes quality evidence?

Quality evidence is evidence that lets you make decisions about how a service should be rated. It will help you decide whether a service has met the elements and, if all elements of a standard have been met, whether the service has met or exceeded the standard. In the appropriate circumstances, quality evidence will also guide whether, and what, compliance action is taken.

To inform your decisions, you will have collected evidence throughout the assessment and rating process, particularly during the service visit. Summarising evidence effectively is a skill that takes practice and careful consideration. It is helpful to think about common occurrences or patterns in the evidence you collected, as well as unique or significant moments that contributed to your rating decisions. If inconsistent practice is observed, you should consider the inconsistent quality policy when deciding the impact the inconsistent practice will have on the rating.

You can summarise the evidence that led to your decision by:

• choosing examples which typify practice • avoiding simply restating element and standard descriptors, and statements from the Guide to

the National Quality Standard • using a combination of general and specific evidence • writing all evidence in the past tense where practicable • avoiding repetition – decide where your evidence fits best • being aware that substantial experiences might contain multiple pieces of evidence.

Details of conversations provide robust evidence for decisions. However, it is usually unnecessary to provide detailed descriptions of what was observed or to transcribe a whole conversation as evidence in the report. A summary of what was seen or heard paints a clearer picture for the reader. Example of summarising evidence – please note that this example is included as part of this guide for indicative / illustrative purposes only

Evidence collected during the assessment and rating visit

Summarised version of the evidence

Educators engage in conversation as families arrive to collect children. Educator spoke with one parent “He had a really good day…he spent a long time on the bikes with D outside. They were ‘rescuing’ animals and taking them up to the cubby”. Asks parent if this play happens at home. Parent explains child has been watching program on TV about this, and states that she is very happy that the play is supported at the service.

An educator and parent were heard positively discussing a child’s interest in ‘rescuing’ animals and the similarities between his play at home and at the service.


Deciding if the service has met an element

The first decision you must make is whether the elements in each standard have been met.

In the report template, simply click the Met / Not Met button to indicate whether the service has met the relevant element.

Presenting and evaluating evidence at the standard level

The next step is to present your evidence and rate at the standard level. When making the rating decision, you should consider the evidence that you have collected and determine how the service has performed against the standard.

You will present your evidence and analysis for each standard in the expandable text fields included within the assessment and rating report template. The text field is in bullet point format, and will expand when you press enter, adding a new bullet point each time. Once you click out of the text field, all the text that you have entered will be displayed.

You can link a piece of evidence to one or more elements by clearly referencing the relevant numbers as part of your text. You can also include an evaluative summary of your bullet pointed evidence at the end of the text field as required and appropriate (press shift and enter together to add a new line to the text field that does not include a bullet point at the start). Where one or more elements in a standard are not met, you should rate that standard as ‘Working towards NQS’. If there is an unacceptable risk to the health, safety or wellbeing of children, you may rate the service as ‘Significant improvement required’ for the standard.


Where all of the elements in a standard are met, you will need to determine if that standard should be rated at ‘Meeting NQS’ or ‘Exceeding NQS’. The assessment and rating report template has been designed to assist you to record rating decisions. For example, if the service does not meet one or more of the elements in a standard, the template will only allow you to choose a standard level rating of ‘Working towards NQS’ or ‘Significant improvement required’. When all elements in a standard are met, the template will only allow you to choose a standard level rating of ‘Meeting NQS’ or ‘Exceeding NQS’. The assessment and rating report template will also automatically calculate the quality area ratings and the service’s overall rating, based on your standard level ratings. The assessment and rating report template requires you to confirm for each of the seven quality areas whether there is an unacceptable risk to the health, safety or wellbeing of children. If you click that there is an unacceptable risk, the quality area rating will automatically default to ‘Significant improvement required’ and you will be presented with an additional text field to provide further information. Please ensure that you click ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for all of the seven quality areas.

Additional features of the standard level text field

Below the text field you will see a ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ button.

Clicking the ‘ ’ button reveals a drop down box containing two options: ‘In addition’ and ‘However’. ‘In addition’ can be used to record evidence that indicates a service is performing above the NQS. ‘However’ can be used to record evidence that indicates a service is performing below the NQS.

These features of the assessment and rating report template are optional, and are not required when determining a rating of ‘Meeting NQS’. They may however be useful when determining a rating of ‘Exceeding NQS’ or ‘Working towards NQS’.


Recording evidence when a service does not meet one or more elements in a standard

If a service does not meet one or more of the elements in a standard, the standard will be rated as ‘Working towards NQS’. If there is an unacceptable risk to the health, safety or wellbeing of children, you may rate the service as ‘Significant improvement required’ for the standard. The evidence for deciding an element is not met is therefore vital to the standard level rating. The evidence that you record in the standard level text field should clearly demonstrate where the service has not met one or more of the elements. You may also choose to include evidence for where the service has met aspects of the standard, but the most crucial evidence will relate to how and why the service is not meeting one or more elements of the standard. It should be clear to the reader which element(s) your evidence relates to, and why you have determined that one or more elements of the standard are not met. Recording evidence when a service meets all elements in a standard

If a service meets all of the elements in a standard, the standard will be rated as ‘Meeting NQS’ or ‘Exceeding NQS’. You will record your evidence and reasons for rating at ‘Meeting NQS’ or ‘Exceeding NQS’ in the standard level text box. Again, it should be clear to the reader why you have determined one of the two rating levels for the standard.

Examples of standard level text fields – please note that these examples are included as part of this guide for indicative / illustrative purposes only


Quality area level summary

The assessment and rating report template includes space for you to record three types of information at the quality area level – minor adjustment notes; quality improvement plan notes; and compliance notes. If you wish to link the information that you record to an individual standard, element or regulation, please do this by clearly referencing the relevant name or number as part of your notes.

Minor adjustment notes

The regulatory authority may give an approved provider time to make adjustments where the regulatory authority identifies an issue that:

• does not pose an unacceptable risk to the safety, health or wellbeing of children • has minimal impact on the quality of the service provided • can be quickly and easily rectified • is not one of numerous other minor matters • may, if rectified, result in the service receiving an improved rating against a standard.

Minor adjustments can be offered at the time of the assessment visit or prior to issuing the draft assessment and rating report. Where a minor adjustment is offered, you should record the specific details of the issue in the minor adjustment notes field. The provider of the service will need to show evidence that it has taken steps to resolve the issue before that can be reflected in the report. You should record details of the evidence that has been provided to show the issue has been resolved in the minor adjustment notes field. If the provider does not address the issue, you should record that as well.

For more information, please refer to the minor adjustments policy in the Guide to Assessment and Rating for Regulatory Authorities on the ACECQA website.

Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) notes

The QIP notes field provides a space for you to help the provider of the service, and the staff at the service, focus their quality improvement efforts most effectively.

Tips for writing QIP notes:

• Make suggestions for focusing quality improvement without being prescriptive, to empower local ownership and reflection. For example, “In quality improvement planning, the provider of the service may wish to consider…”


• Consider including advice on, and signposting towards, available resources. For example, “Staff at the service may wish to look at…”

• If the provider of the service has already identified the need for improvement in the QIP, it is important to acknowledge this and encourage staff at the service to follow through with the plans.

Compliance notes

If you noted potential compliance issues during your visit, or if there are historical compliance issues that are relevant to your decision making process, you should record the details in the compliance notes field. Make sure you include a reference to the relevant regulation or section of the Law.

At the back of the assessment and rating report template, any information you enter in the minor adjustment notes, quality improvement plan notes, and compliance notes fields will be automatically transposed into a summary table.

Assessment and rating summary

Towards the back of the assessment and rating report template is a summary table that is automatically populated, based on your standard level ratings. At the end of the report are three more summary tables which are automatically populated, based on any minor adjustment, quality improvement plan, and compliance notes that you have entered throughout the report. The first summary table also includes a comments field for you to provide an overall summary statement. This statement should:

• make general statements which summarise your evidence and ratings • be consistent with the information presented within the body of the report • be relevant, meaningful and tailored for the individual service • identify particular areas for improvement, linked to the QIP notes in the report • identify any particular strengths that you observed, to encourage the service to maintain

good practice

• be presented as a statement issued by the regulatory authority.

The statement only needs to be one or two paragraphs long. When writing the overall summary, you may want to consider a broader audience than just the provider and staff at the service. For instance, educators may choose to share the statement with families as an overall, short and concise summary of the assessment and rating process. If your regulatory authority wishes to include contextual information as part of the assessment and rating report, this can form the start of the assessment and rating summary statement. The context sets the scene for the reader, and can include relevant information about the service’s location, size, type, hours of business and history.


Examples of overall summary statements – please note that these examples are included as part of this guide for indicative / illustrative purposes only


Style guide

Write for your audience

Understanding your readers will help you to choose the best writing style, word choice and communication channel. Ask yourself:

• What education, experience and attitude will readers bring?

• What do my readers need from the document?

• What do I want my readers to do in response?

• Will my readers easily understand what I am writing?

Your writing should always be accurate, credible and concise, but can vary in other ways depending on your audience. For assessment and rating reports, the primary audience is the approved provider and the staff of the service. However, there is also a range of other potential audiences, including families.

Choose the right tone

While writers usually work hard to get the content right, the tone can be equally important to successful communication.

The choice of a single word can change the tone of a paragraph.

Use plain English expression

Short sentences

Shorter sentences are easier to read and digest, so think of full stops as your best friend. If in doubt, end a sentence. Then start a new one.

Vary the length of your sentences, but average them at 15 to 20 words. Split sentences with more than 30 words—they probably have more than one idea.

Active voice

Verbs show the action in a sentence. In active voice, the subject doing the action comes before the verb. Passive voice puts the actor after the verb or leaves it out of the sentence altogether, so it is less clear who is doing the action.

For energetic, easy-to-read writing, most of your verbs should be in active voice.

Clutter-free sentences

Tell readers what they want without wasting words, repeating ideas or including unnecessary detail.

Avoid wordy phrases such as ‘it is noted that’, eliminating or simplifying them.

You can often remove the word ‘that’ in phrases such as ‘We have found that …’ or ‘ACECQA announced that …’.

Tautology is the use of two words meaning the same thing, for example, a ‘new innovation’.

Check you are not wasting space on words that repeat an idea.


Simple words

Choose words and phrases that your readers can easily understand.

Officialese is very formal writing you rarely see outside an office. For more accessible language, replace officialese with everyday words wherever you can.

Jargon is language that only a select group uses. Use specialist terms only when you are sure that the reader is completely familiar with them.

Also avoid clichés and newly coined uses, like ‘tasking’ someone to do something, or ‘oversighting’ (for ‘overseeing’ or ‘supervising’).

Make statements clear

Consistent verb tenses

‘Tense’ is the form of a verb that shows when the action takes place. Take care not to switch between past and present tense in a sentence unless you mean to.

Verb agreement

Verbs may also change their form depending on who is doing the action. Check if the main noun before the verb is singular or plural and match it with the right verb form.

Capitals, spelling and plurals

Use capitals for specific names, lower case for generic terms

Capitalise the names of people, and of organisations and positions when you refer to them by their full name. But when you are referring to organisations or positions in general, use lower case.

Use lower case for short forms of a name

For first mention of a specific body or program, use capitals for the full title. After that use the shortened form in lower case.

Follow recommended capitalisation in these special cases

Rating system

Write the five levels of the NQF rating system as follows:

• Excellent

• Exceeding National Quality Standard

• Meeting National Quality Standard

• Working towards National Quality Standard

• Significant improvement required. When referring to a rating level, do not capitalise the word ‘rating’


Qualifications

When you refer to the full title of an official training course, use capitals. Otherwise, use lower case.

Regulatory authorities

When you refer to state and territory regulatory authorities, use capital letters only for the full title of the authority. Do not capitalise the words ‘state’ or ‘territory’.

Framework

Always capitalise ‘Framework’ when referring to the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care.

Government/government

Use capitals if the word is part of a formal title. Otherwise, use lower case.

Commonwealth

Australia is known as the Commonwealth of Australia. Its primary governing body is the Commonwealth Parliament. In this context, always capitalise Commonwealth.

Legal terms, including Regulations

When you refer to legislation, some words are capitalised to distinguish them from their everyday forms. In this context, always capitalise ‘Act’, ‘Ordinance’, ‘Regulation’ and ‘Bill’.

Always capitalise ‘Regulations’ and ‘National Regulations’ when referring to the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Minimise shortened word forms

Generally, spell out words in full, except in tables, graphics or reference lists.

Avoid ‘etc.’, ‘i.e.’ and ‘e.g.’

Avoid using ‘etc.’ or ‘and so on’ at the end of sentences. Either list all the items in a group, or use a construction such as ‘including X, Y and Z’.

Prefer ‘that is’ to ‘i.e.’, and ‘for example’ or ‘such as’ to ‘e.g.’. If you need to use these Latin abbreviations, for example in a table, note the full stops.

Use the ampersand ‘&’ only in titles

In general text, always spell out ‘and’. Use the ampersand ‘&’ only in official organisation titles, or in references.


Match punctuation and capitals to the type of shortened form

Abbreviations consist of the first letters of a word. Avoid them where possible. If you need to use them, for example in tables, end abbreviations with a full stop.

Contractions are short forms that consist of the first and last letters of a word and sometimes other letters in between. Do not end contractions with a full stop.

Acronyms are words formed from strings of initial letters. Generally, use all capitals but no full stops for acronyms. An acronym pronounced as a string of letters rather than a word is sometimes called an initialism.

Use acronyms sparingly

Unless an acronym is very familiar to readers, like NSW, spell out the title in full when you first use it. Put the acronym in brackets if you will need to use it later in the document.

Punctuation

Use apostrophes to show possession

Use apostrophes only to indicate ownership or possession.

Its or it’s?

Note that possessive ‘its’ has no apostrophe. It is a pronoun like ‘his’ or ‘their’.

‘It’s’ is a contraction of the phrase ‘it is’—the apostrophe marks the missing letter ‘i’.

Adding an apostrophe with ‘s’

For the possessive form of singular nouns, generally add an apostrophe, then ‘s’.

When the noun ends in an ‘s’, add an apostrophe after the noun but no extra ‘s’.

Most plural nouns end in ‘s’. Add an apostrophe, but no extra ‘s’.

For plural nouns that do not end in ‘s’, add an apostrophe, then ‘s’.

No apostrophe for abbreviated plurals

When making plurals of shortened forms, do not add apostrophes.

Distinguish between hyphens and dashes

Hyphens and dashes have different uses.

• The hyphen (-) joins two words to make one.

• The en dash (–) links words that are associated but remain distinct.

• The em dash (—) separates larger units of a sentence.


End sentences with a full stop or other punctuation

Except in headings, end full sentences with a full stop, or more rarely a question or exclamation mark. Put only a single space after the stop.

Place commas carefully

Use commas to chunk material, for example:

• to separate an introductory phrase from the clause that follows

• to separate an aside, or parenthetic element, from the rest of the sentence

• to divide items in lists. Do not put a comma before the final ‘and’ in a list unless it is needed to clarify the sense.

Use single quotation marks as the default

For a quote shorter than about 30 words, enclose it in single quotation marks.

Set longer quotes as indented block quotes. These do not need quotation marks.

Use single quotation marks also to quote direct speech. A quote within a quote uses double quotation marks.

Place final full stops outside quotation marks

Place a full stop or a comma that ends a quoted sentence outside the quotation marks.

Keep a question or exclamation mark with the quoted sentence.

Lists

Use bullet points for most lists

Items in a list are generally easier to read if they are indented with bullet points than if they are written in block text.

For items that have no set order, use bullet lists. Use numbered lists only to show items in priority or time order, or when you will need to cross-refer to items. Do not use letters at the start of each item.

Punctuate bullet lists and numbered lists consistently

Introduce each series with a whole or part of a sentence, so that the text flows freely. Then follow the normal rules of capitalisation in each bulleted item. Do not use a comma (,) or a semicolon (;) to separate the points.

When list items are sentence fragments

If the points are phrases that complete an initial sentence, introduce them with a phrase ending in a colon (:). Only the final item takes a full stop. Do not start the points with capital letters.


When list items are full sentences

If the points are full sentences, introduce them with a sentence or phrase ending in a colon (:). Start each list item with a capital and end with a full stop.

Extra sentence in a bullet point

If an item includes an extra sentence of information, try to place it last in the list.

Numbers and dates

Spell out the numbers one to nine and use numerals for 10 on

Do not begin a sentence with a number in numerical form. Instead, write the number out, or recast the sentence.

Use commas in numbers 10,000 and above

Use commas, not spaces, in numbers of five or more digits. Numbers of 9999 and below do not need commas or spaces.

Use ‘per cent’ in text, ‘%’ in tables

In text, write out ‘per cent’, as two words. In tables, you can use the symbol ‘%’, with no space before.

Use day month year for dates

Use numerals for the day, spell the month in full, and then use numerals for the year. Do not use commas, even if including the name of the day as part of the date.

Use ‘am’ and ‘pm’ for time

Use the 12-hour system. Do not put a space before ‘am’ or ‘pm’, nor use full stops.

To show a span of time, use an en dash (Ctrl and - on the numeric keyboard).

References and citations

Use (author date) to cite sources in a text

When writing body text, refer to a publication by the name of the author and the year of publication. Occasionally, you will need to give the name of the publication rather than the author. List the references elsewhere in the document.

Follow conventions for referencing

Reference lists must guide the reader to easily find the source of information, using a consistent and concise style. The title of published works is always italicised.


List references in alphabetical order of author last

Where you use a bibliography or list of references at the end of a document, list items alphabetically by author:

• When there is more than one publication by the same author, order these by year.

• When there is more than one publication by the same author in the same year, order these alphabetically by publication title and then allocate a letter.

Italicise titles of publications, including Acts of parliament

Italicise the formal titles of publications. This includes Acts of parliament.

Simpler options for officialese words

Officialese word Simpler option

access use, view, find

additional more, extra

approximately about, around, roughly

ascertain find out

assistance help

commencement start

concerning about

demonstrate show

discontinue stop, end

enable help

endeavour try

enumerate count, list

facilitate help

forward send

hereunder under, below

identify find, name, show

immediately at once, now

impact (verb) affect (verb)

indicate show

inequitable unfair


locate find

methodology method, approach

notify tell, inform

notwithstanding even though, despite

numerous many

otherwise or

particulars details

prioritise rank

purchase buy

regarding about

remuneration pay, wages, fee

remainder rest

represents is

request ask

subsequent next, later

sufficient enough

terminate stop, end, finish

therefore because

undertake do, agree, promise

upon on

utilisation use

whilst when, while

according to our records our records show

as a consequence as a result, so

assist in the resolution of help resolve

at any one time at once, at a time

for periods of up to 12 months for up to 12 months

have regard to consider

in accordance with in line with, under

in determining whether to decide if

in order to to


in the normal course of events normally

is responsible for managing must manage

it is anticipated that we expect

it will be necessary to advise us you must advise us

it would be appreciated if please

on a regular basis regularly

prior to the commencement of before (X) starts

the purpose of this report is to outline this report outlines

the risks associated with the risks of

to the extent that so far as, if

with regard to about, for

Commonly confused words

Advise or advice?

‘Advise’ is a verb, while ‘advice’ is a noun.

Affect or effect?

‘Affect’ is a verb. Use it when you mean ‘to influence’ rather than ‘to cause’.

‘Effect’ can be a verb or a noun. Use it as a verb to mean ‘to bring about’ or ‘ to cause’.

More commonly, the word ‘effect’ is a noun, meaning ‘a result’. It is often preceded by ‘a’, ‘any’, ‘the’, or ‘no’. We also use it in phrases like ‘take effect’ or ‘into effect’.

Licence or license?

‘License’ is a verb while ‘licence’ is a noun.

Practise or practice?

‘Practise’ is a verb, while ‘practice’ is a noun.

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