Pride in Excellence
The Children’s Place believes strongly in continuous
improvement—in evaluating our programs, methods,
and teachers regularly to ensure we are providing
children the best early education possible. That’s
why we participate in the Qualistar Early Rating process:
to get an objective assessment of our center’s
strengths and areas for improvement.
Choosing a quality early learning program is one of
the most important things parents can do for their
children’s development. When considering different
child care centers, we encourage
parents to review the center’s parent handbook,
get to know the teachers, and ask plenty of
questions about the school’s philosophy of child
development and learning.
Please review our 2009 Early Learning Report from
Qualistar Early Learning, which gave The Children’s
Place the highest overall rating possible: four stars.
Or read more about quality with the Qualistar Early
Learning article about the importance of quality in early childhood development programs:
Why Quality Matters
The Children's Place Highlights
The Children’s Place is extremely proud of our four-star Qualistar Early Learning rating and our 10 out of 10 score on the
Learning Environment category. How did we earn a perfect 10? Here are the
of our Learning Environment score:
Health and Safety
Qualistar carefully evaluated each of our classrooms on several health and safety criteria, including meals,
naptime, hand-washing, general safety, playground safety, and more. Qualistar has very high standards for
Health and Safety, and we are proud that each of the classrooms at The Children’s Place early childhood
education center received perfect scores in most of the six categories.
Interactions
Qualistar’s 6.9 rating means that The Children’s Place early childhood education teachers
create a warm social-emotional environment
while using positive supervision and guidance to support children’s learning and development. Children feel
physically and emotionally safe at The Children’s Place, and thus, are able to fully explore the learning
environment and develop positive relationships with adults and their peers.
Language and reasoning
This score is based on how well teachers plan formal and informal activities that encourage children to
communicate and reason. The Children’s Place has a wide variety of books and other language materials
throughout all of our classrooms as well as other materials designed to promote diversity, awareness,
and other skills, such as fine motor, social, expressive art, science, and math skills. Teachers read to
children frequently, ask open-ended questions to promote critical thinking, and encourage children to
probe further by repeating and expanding upon their responses. As a result, children learn vocabulary
and begin to understand story structure, the letter-sound relationship, and the connection between
written and spoken words.
Program Structure
This category evaluates the learning program’s balance of activities and learning situations. At The Children’s Place,
our teachers create a daily schedule that meets the unique learning needs of each child enrolled—including
those with special needs. Our daily schedules provide predictability and stability for children, but are
flexible to accommodate children’s natural cycles. We believe that children should be active participants
in their learning process, so our daily schedules provide “choice times” in which children can explore
curiosities and choose their own activities. Through songs and games, teachers help children transition
smoothly from one activity to another. Children are allowed to learn at their own pace and are given time
to follow through on tasks, rather than be rushed from activity to activity.