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What do we mean by Quality?
Good quality childcare provides a safe stimulating environment and supports the physical, emotional, social, moral and intellectual development of children. There are many elements to providing a high quality childcare service. The broad areas that you should look at are the childcare environments-indoor and out, interaction between adults and children, communicating with parents, the curriculum and daily/weekly routines, nutritious and healthy meals, inclusiveness of the children in the setting, the management and staffing, staff training and qualifications, meeting all legal requirements, health & safety and many many more. Please see our leaflet on Understanding Quality in Childcare for more details.
Siolta the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education was developed and published in 2006 by the CECDE under the Dept of Education and Science. Siolta sets out 16 quality standards which are underpinned by broad principles relating to the education and care of children aged birth to six.
Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework is a curriculum framework for children aged from birth to six based on 12 principles and broken down into 4 themes.
You’re probably wondering why there are two frameworks and what the difference between the two is. Well basically ‘Aistear’ is a curriculum framework and ‘Siolta’ is a quality framework.
Can Aistear & Siolta be used together?
Yes. Both frameworks can be used independently of each other but they can also be used to complement each other.
Please see Aistear and Siolta: Similarities and Differences for details on how the two can be used together. It will tell you what theme, aims and learning goals in Aistear relate to a particular standard in Siolta
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