Exceeding the National Quality Standard in South Australia

The 2018 update to the National Quality Standard (NQS) brought with it a national agreement to strengthen how the Exceeding rating was awarded and made it more challenging for a service to achieve an overall rating of Exceeding.

As we rate services for the first time under the 2018 standards, services who were previously rated as Exceeding, are now more commonly receiving a Meeting rating. Some reasons for this include:

• the benchmark for Exceeding practice was raised when the themes were introduced
• the time between assessments and rating cycle time in South Australia is long, and is above the national average
• services and educators are not as familiar with the new NQS and the exceeding themes

Services should celebrate achieving a Meeting rating and any Exceeding themes that were identified in their assessment, a Meeting rating means quality practices are in place.

We are planning activities and resources to support the sector in increasing its understanding of exceeding practice through 2024, and have developed a fact sheet to outline key information to support services, providers and parents in understanding the Exceeding practice and changes for the Standard.