What Counts as Evidence in a Quality Improvement Plan?

Evidence can take many forms

When working on a Quality Improvement Plan, services often ask: What actually counts as evidence? Evidence does not need to mean hundreds of uploaded documents, photographs or meeting minutes.

The purpose of evidence is to help demonstrate what happened, what changed and whether an improvement is making a difference. A QIP should remain current and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

• Educator reflections and observations
• Children’s feedback and examples of their work or contributions
• Family feedback, surveys and communication
• Meeting discussions, minutes and progress notes within the QIP
• Photographs and programming documentation
• Changes to environments, policies, procedures or routines
• Professional development records, audits and reviews
• Records of trials or changes in practice

Evidence that something happened vs evidence that something improved

This is one of the most important distinctions. Imagine your QIP goal is to strengthen children’s influence over program planning. Your service introduces a weekly children’s planning meeting.

A photograph of the meeting is evidence that the action happened, but it does not necessarily prove children’s influence increased.

Stronger evidence might include children’s suggestions appearing in the program, projects initiated by children, educator reflections explaining how children’s ideas changed planning, children describing decisions they helped make, and experiences evolving in response to children’s feedback.

Ask: What would convince us that this has made a difference?

Example 1: Family engagement

Imagine your QIP goal is to strengthen opportunities for families to contribute to service decisions.

Evidence of actions might include a family survey, an email requesting feedback, a consultation board or parent meeting notes. Evidence of improvement might include a service decision changed following family feedback, programming influenced by family contributions, more families contributing through different methods, and families reporting that they understand how their feedback is used.

Sending a survey proves you asked for feedback. Showing how feedback influenced practice demonstrates something much more meaningful.

Example 2: Critical reflection

Consider the goal: Strengthen critical reflection across the educator team. Evidence could include educator reflections, notes from team discussions, critical reflection questions and examples of practices reviewed by educators.

Look for the impact: reflection → discussion → change → review. For example, educators reflected on increasing conflict during afternoon transitions, gathered children’s perspectives, identified long waiting periods as a possible contributor, and trialled a more flexible transition that resulted in smoother movement between afternoon tea and play.

Example 3: Professional development

A certificate proves that an educator attended training in supporting children’s emotional regulation. That is useful evidence, but it does not demonstrate improved practice.

You might also collect educator reflections following the training, observations of changed educator approaches, examples discussed during team meetings, changes to environments or routines, follow-up coaching records, feedback from educators, and evidence that new approaches have become consistent practice.

The certificate shows professional development occurred. The other evidence helps show what changed because of it.

Example 4: Physical environment

Your service identifies a goal to create quieter spaces for children seeking lower-stimulation experiences. Evidence might include children’s feedback about the existing environment, photographs before and after changes, planning notes, observations of how children use the space, educator reflections and further changes made following the trial.

The strongest evidence may not be the photograph of the new space. It may be observations showing that children are independently accessing it and that the space is meeting the need originally identified.

Use evidence from everyday practice

Evidence does not always need to be created specifically for the QIP. Some of the most useful evidence already exists within everyday service practice.

A conversation with children might demonstrate consultation. A team meeting discussion might demonstrate critical reflection. A programming entry might demonstrate children’s influence. A family email might demonstrate feedback. An observation might demonstrate changed educator practice. A photograph might demonstrate how an environment evolved.

Instead of creating extra paperwork, ask: What are we already doing that demonstrates this improvement? Then connect that evidence back to the relevant QIP priority.

Do not collect evidence just for the sake of it

More evidence does not automatically mean stronger evidence. Twenty photographs showing an activity took place may tell you less than one educator reflection explaining what was identified, what changed, why it changed, what happened afterwards and what will happen next.

Evidence should help tell the story of the improvement. If a document, photograph or record does not help demonstrate the action, progress, outcome or learning, ask whether it really needs to be attached.

Progress notes are evidence too

Your QIP itself can provide important evidence of the improvement journey. Keep it up to date through regular progress notes and periodic evaluation of progress towards priority goals.

For example: March — children identified that the outdoor area had limited spaces for quiet play. April — educators reviewed children’s suggestions and trialled a quieter outdoor space. May — observations showed the space was being regularly used by small groups of children. June — children suggested adding drawing materials and loose parts, so the space was adjusted following their feedback.

This is much more informative than simply marking the goal “Completed”. It shows how the improvement developed over time.

Evidence does not need to show success every time

Sometimes evidence shows that an idea did not work. That can still be valuable.

If a monthly digital family survey receives limited participation and families say it takes too long to complete during collection, the service can record that it will trial shorter, one-question feedback opportunities connected to specific service decisions.

That demonstrates reflection and adjustment. Continuous improvement is not about proving every strategy was successful. It is about evaluating what happens and deciding what to do next.

Keep evidence connected to the improvement

Photos might be stored on one device, meeting minutes somewhere else, family feedback in an email and professional development certificates in another folder. Six months later, someone has to remember how everything connects.

Where possible, evidence should be linked to the specific improvement it supports. For each piece of evidence, ask: What does this demonstrate? If the answer is unclear, the evidence may not add much value.

A simple way to think about QIP evidence

For each improvement, consider collecting evidence across four stages: identification — what showed us there was an opportunity to improve; action — what demonstrates what we did; impact — what shows that something changed; and reflection — what did we learn and what will happen next.

You may not need evidence for every stage every time. Together, these questions help create a much clearer record of your improvement journey.

Good evidence tells the story of improvement

The purpose of evidence is not to create the largest possible QIP. It is to help demonstrate your service’s thinking, actions and progress.

When reviewing evidence, ask: What did we identify? What did we do? What changed? How do we know? What did we learn? What happens next? If your evidence helps answer those questions, it is probably useful evidence.

Keep your QIP evidence in one place

QIPify helps ECEC and OSHC services keep evidence connected to their Quality Improvement Plan. Instead of evidence being spread across folders, emails and different systems, services can record their improvement work and keep supporting evidence linked to the relevant areas of their QIP.

That makes it easier to build the story of improvement as it happens rather than trying to piece it together later.

Important information

This article provides general information about Quality Improvement Plans under the National Quality Framework. Services should refer to current ACECQA guidance and applicable legislation when determining their regulatory obligations.