Quality Management

If you watch you’ll see more than by playing along”

(Wilhelm Busch)

Observation and documentation are central tasks for the teachers in (early) child education.

They collect basic information, which is used to set a focus in the educational nurturing of each child.

We watch what the children are currently interested in and what they are occupied with, and we incorporate that in our daily work with the child or when we chose a subject for projects.

This supports the ability of the child to participate.

It also enables us to give extensive and very detailed information about the developmental status of the child to his/her parents during the yearly development talk.

A child’s development can be analyzed very precisely from birth until the 72nd month of age.

We specifically watch each child three times a year in various situations by use of the Leuven Involvement Scale.

That way we can observe how engrossed a child is in his/her “work”, which is an indication of whether and how strongly emotionally stabilized the child is and whether the below mentioned fields of education are developed in an age-appropriate way.

If we suspect deficiencies of a child in certain phases, we consult the development scale by Kuno Beller, which comprises the following fields:

Personal hygiene
Environmental awareness
Social-emotional development
Playing
Language
Cognition
Gross motor skills
Fine motor skills

The child’s developmental status is rated by his/her daily behavior in a familiar environment.

Our educational offerings are built on the foundation of this information.

Once a year we present the evaluation of this documentation to the parents during the developmental talk.

The diary of language learning is another instrument of documentation and observation.

From the third year of age on we continuously work with each child on and with the diary of language learning, and follow thus his/her language development.

The diaries are kept in the group room and are accessible to children and parents, and each child may, if he/she wishes, work independently on his/her own book.

The daily proceedings, special events and the presence are documented in group books.

Evaluation

Berlin’s government has set high standards for the quality of children’s daycare centers, which are defined in the "Rahmenvereinbarung über die Qualitätsentwicklung in Berliner Kindertagesstätten“

(framework agreement regarding the quality developments in Berlin’s children’s daycare centers).

In order to secure the daycare centers’ quality, they are obliged to have regular internal and external evaluations.

Internally, we evaluate the quality of our institutions through self-evaluation by the employees concerning preset management objectives, as well as recurring interviews with the parents as a “sounding board” of our work.

Kiddies Family’s external evaluations are executed by the independent institute Quecc every 5 year, where all our Kitas regularly succeed with a very high score.

The Berlin Program

“Health is the most important thing” – surely everybody has said this before!

But good health is not fate, it is, to a certain degree, within our control.

It is particularly important to start with the youngest children, because they have a long way to go, and the better their health is, the more likely they are to succeed.

Because of the importance of this subject, the Berlin government in cooperation with the Bertelsmann Foundation, the AOK (general health insurance) and other institutions has founded the program “Kitas bewegen” (an organizational development program for kindergartens by the Senate of Berlin restricted to chosen organizations), in order to introduce the subject of health on all levels in the kitas’ daily routine.

Health and education are entwined.

Based on this understanding, everybody involved in the healthy development of the children, like the kita employees and the children’s parents, can create positive conditions for the children, teach them relevant knowledge and build a consciousness for this subject, which can all lead to a sustainable good health.

So far, the program has only been implemented at selected daycare centers, in order to acquire experience.

All Kitas of Kiddies Family have been selected to participate in this program.

Human Resources Development

For us at Kiddies Family, Professional Development is an important subject, because it is the foundation of high quality care.

Happy employees are motivated and enjoy their work.

This joy creates the positive atmosphere children need for a good development.

Teamwork

A good relationship among members of a team is the precondition for good cooperation and high performance. To achieve this, continuous and open communication is indispensable. Therefore, our employees have regular team meetings to discuss both organizational and educational issues. This platform also offers all participants an ongoing opportunity to discuss and solve any conflicts.

Annual company outings and Christmas parties are another team-building measure, where the teachers can meet and bond outside of the daycare centers on a private level.

Advanced training

Every human being needs stimulation and motivation to avoid feeling trapped in a never-changing daily routine.

Changes create joy at work.

During advanced training our employees study new methods and content, which enriches their work and makes it more interesting.