Bristol Standard Purposes

These purposes are underpinned by Quality. The purpose of the Bristol Standard is to:

• Achieve high quality provision for all children from birth in a culture of inclusion and anti-discriminatory practice.
• Work together collaboratively, have a voice and learn from each other.
• Celebrate current good practice and develop the quality and effectiveness of provision through a process of reflection.
• Enable settings to develop and improve the quality and effectiveness of their practice to benefit all children from birth.
• Support the development of genuine partnerships with children’s families or carers, other professionals and the local and wider community.
• Promote leadership which is motivational and inclusive that demonstrates a commitment to sustain continuous improvement and contribute to professional development.
• Enable change through clear leadership and a shared vision which values individual strengths.

The History of the Bristol standard

The first edition of the Bristol Standard was launched on the 16th November 2000 and was an example of Bristol’s pioneering work to improve Early Year’s provision. It was developed to give practitioners a framework to help them evaluate the quality of provision and through the ten dimensions enhance practice in a manageable way. The Bristol Standard has been recognised nationally as an example of excellence and has been adopted by a number of other local authorities in the South West. It has been endorsed by the National Quality Improvement Network as a collaborative and rigorous process which has been underpinned by their twelve Quality Improvement Principles. The Bristol Standard wheel of quality is based on research from the Effective Early Learning Project (EEL) which took place at University College, Worcester and was headed up by Professor Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram.