BRiTE and the National Quality Standards (NQS)

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) oversees the implementation of the National Quality Framework (NQF) and works with state and territory regulatory authorities to implement and administer the AQF. The National Quality Standards (NQS) are a key aspect of the NQF, setting a high, national benchmark for early childhood education and care, and outside school hours services in Australia. It gives services and families a better understanding of a quality service, enabling families to make informed decisions about the services providing education and care to their child. The Revised NQS (from 1 February 2018) brings together the 7 key quality areas that are important to outcomes for children, with 15  standards. Under each standard, 40 elements in total describe the outcomes that contribute to the standards being achieved.

The task of mapping the National Quality Standards (NQS) to the BRiTE Modules was completed. As all subjects within the Early Years program are linked to the NQS, the intention was for students to see the relevance of BRiTE to their learning and their work. In this way, we integrated the BRiTE modules into coursework to support  students to look at and consider these responsibilities. As such, we provided support strategies for resilience within the subject content, embedding resilience into pre-service teacher thinking.