Self Review in New Zealand earl improving the quality of practice Self review is an ongoing process through which early childhood services evaluate the effectiveness of what they do, with the aim of improving the quality of their practice (Ministry of Education [MoE], 1999). Throughout a teacher’s own learning journey – from the beginning teacher through to a registering teacher - there are many opportunities to engage in and undertake self reflection. Often this is as a result of teaching experiences and introspective reflection and discussions with a mentoring teacher on their own practice, values, morals, and culture with a view to achieving and renewing registered teacher status.
However, there is a difference between self review and self reflection, which can be summarized as follows: •
Self review enables services to evaluate what they do to improve the quality of education provided for children
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Self reflection is the capacity of the individual teacher to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about their fundamental nature, purpose and essence.
The Early Childhood Regulations licensing criteria under Governance Management and Administration GMA6 states: •
An ongoing process of self-review helps the service maintain and improve the quality of its education and care
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Documentation required: 1. A process for reviewing and evaluating the service’s operation (for example, learning and teaching practices, philosophy, policies, and procedures) by the people involved in the service. The process is consistent with criterion GMA4, and includes a schedule showing timelines for planned review of different areas of operation. 2. Recorded outcomes from the review process
Self review works effectively when whole teaching teams are engaged in, and contributing to, the entire process, together with the all parties to the early childhood service including service managers/owners, children, whānau and family. It is the responsibility of the whole service to ensure robust and ongoing self review is evident, visible, explicit, and actively used to improve teaching practice and learning outcomes for children. We document self review so that it is transparent, it is a living document, and it reminds us of our journey towards improving practice for the future. We start the self review process by identifying what it is we are reviewing and why; this usually comes about as a result of planned items (emergent self review usually occurs after the event has happened). Ngā Arohaehae Whai Hua (MoE, 1999) identifies three key areas of practice that require self review: 1. Learning and teaching practices (embracing the concept of Ako – learning and teaching as reciprocal processes) 34 Good Teacher Magazine Term 4 2013
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