School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale (Sacers Spiral Edition)

Product Information

The Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale®, 3 rd ed. -- A thorough revision of the FCCERS-R™, designed to assess family child care programs conducted in a provider’s home. Total scale consists of 33 items. Highly trained assessors record the daily activities and interactions observed in a child care setting using the items found in one of the following four rating scales: For the ERS assessment process, a program’s operating hours are determined based on when the program opens and closes, rather than a shorter time period when specific programming occurs. Therefore, the earliest time any children are allowed to attend, until the time the program closes are the program’s operating hours.

No one component is more or less important than the others, nor can one substitute for another. It takes all three to create quality care. Each of the three basic components of quality care manifests itself in tangible forms in the program's environment, curriculum, schedule, supervision and interaction, and can be observed. These are the key aspects of process quality that are included in our environmental rating scales. The observation will continue for at least 3 hours when using the ITERS-R, ECERS-R, and FCCERS-R, but is also likely that a longer observation will occur. For after school assessments using the SACERS-U, the observation will continue for at least 2 hours, but may last longer during assessments that occur on full days such as during the summer. During the visit, the assessor will observe and take notes on a wide variety of interactions, activities, and materials as required by the rating scale. For example, the assessor will observe indoor and outdoor spaces for play and routine care, materials used by the children, health practices, staff/child interactions, and so on.Assessors may also take photographs of the indoor/outdoor spaces and materials as part of their documentation. This generally occurswhen children are not using the space andchildren will not be photographed.For example, if a facility has 1-4 preschool classrooms then 1 ECERS-R assessment is needed. However, if there are 5, 6, or 7 preschool classrooms then 2 ECERS-R assessments are needed. If there are equal numbers of classrooms in age/scale groups and an additional assessment is needed based on the total number of classrooms, the additional assessment and random selection will occur for the rating scale that assesses a younger age group. Personal care routines (e.g. welfare requirements such as health & safety and provision for sleeping) Progressive Training and TA Program: Programs an opportunity to participate in focused and facilitated training and technical assistance. Progressive programs receive individualized technical assistance to improve program quality. Designed to assess group-care programs for children of school age, 5 to 12 during their out-of-school time.

Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, 3 rd ed. -- A thorough revision of the ECERS-R™, designed to assess group programs for preschool-kindergarten aged children, from 3 through 5 years of age. Total scale consists of 35 items. For example, there are 5 infant and toddler classrooms and 9 preschool classrooms. This means that 5 assessments are needed in total. These will include 3 ECERS-R and 2 ITERS-R assessments. The Environment Rating Scales (ERS) are an observational assessment that assess the process quality of a program. Process quality is what the children are directly experiencing in their program and how it has a direct effect on their development. There are 4 (four) different tools that are used in the ERS: the Infant and Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS), the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS), the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS) and the School Age Care Environment Rating Scale (SACERS). All 4 (four) of the scales are set up the same way to make learning the different scales easier, but the content in each scale is based off of the age group that the scale was created for. Our scales define environment in a broad sense and guide the observer to assess the arrangement of space both indoors and outdoors, the materials and activities offered to the children, the supervision and interactions (including language) that occur in the classroom, and the schedule of the day, including routines and activities. The support offered to parents and staff is also included.The ERS are structured, observation based classroom assessments that providecomprehensive coverage of the environment experienced by children (e.g., physical environment, language-reasoning, interactions, program structure, health and safety). An extension to the ECERS-R (the ECERS-E) was designed by Professor Kathy Sylva, Professor Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Brenda Taggart as part of the EPPE Project. It provides greater depth and additional items in four educational aspects of provision : The ECERS-R is used in classrooms where the majority of children are 31 months old and older. The ITERS-R is used when the majority of children are younger than 31 months of age. If a classroom enrollment is exactly half and half (e.g., 3 of 6 children are 30 months or younger and 3 children are 31 months and older) then the ITERS-R will be used.

How is it decided whether a SACERS-U assessment will be needed for an after school program in a child care center?If additional assessments are needed to reach 1/3 of the total classrooms, additional assessment(s) will be needed starting with the age/scale group that has the most classrooms. When 1/3 of that age group has been represented, additional assessment(s) will be added for the next largest age/scale group, as needed, until the total number needed is reached. The ECERS-3 is one of seven scales available for evaluating quality in centre-based early years settings and schools, out-of-school provision and childminding provision. Programme structure (e.g. opportunities for children to access their own curriculum, planning schedules/routines to meet children’s needs) The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale – Revised (ECERS-R) is designed to evaluate quality of provision for children aged 2½ to 5 years in centre-based settings. When you sign up to all three of our newsletters you’ll get all the information you need to help you make the most of your money, from savings and mortgages to credit cards and insurance. You’ll also benefit from personal finance promotions from specially selected third parties.

Science and Environment (e.g. supporting children’s creative and critical thinking and understanding of the natural and physical world) Participate in a “self-assessment” before the scheduled assessment. Likewise, if the program has been previously assessed, review of the earlier assessment report(s) can be helpful. Remember to pay attention to items that scored high, and not only any lower scoring items, to make sure the same strong characteristics are present in the areas that scored well before. The assessment report includes a section called "Summary of Indicators Not Receiving Credit" that identifies every indicator where requirements were not met. This can help identify indicators beyond a lower scoring indicator or even those at the 7 level, where additional consideration may be helpful in improving children's experiences. In both the United States and Canada, elementary schools, community and recreation centers, preschool child care centers, and family child care homes have responded to this obvious need for supervision during out-of-school hours by developing school-age care programs. Both the facilities and the program content differ from one program to another. Some programs focus on recreational activities so that the children can have the same extracurricular opportunities that are available to children who return home at the end of the school day. Others focus on enhancing children's learning by offering a more academically oriented program. In yet other programs, there is an emphasis on the creative arts including the visual arts, music, and drama. One must also consider that school-age child care programs enroll children from 5 to 12 years of age. Given this broad age range, it is essential to offer activities that meet the widely differing needs and interests of children over a 7-year age span.There are several standard documents that you should be aware and your consultant may have other documents related to the program standards portion of the NC Star Rated License. These documents are available under the "Resources" menu and include: