This revised edition of "The Child at the Centre" replaces all previous versions. Along with a revised edition of "How good is our school?," this document forms the third part of "How good is our school? The Journey to Excellence." Early education centres are now part of a wider partnership of professionals, all of whom deliver a range of services to children. This edition of "The Child at the Centre," therefore, has evolved by adopting a framework for self-evaluation common to all public services and structured around six questions which are important for any service to answer. It also ensures the continuity of links with the National Care Standards which HMI and the Care Commission use in their integrated inspection work. This edition also emphasises a culture in which all staff engage in professional discussion and reflection based on a shared understanding of quality and a shared vision of their aims for children. All staff should, therefore, be involved in the self-evaluation process, sharing observations and evaluating their work together. In this context, self-evaluation will be a series of reflective professional processes which will help centres to get to know themselves well, identify their agenda for improvement and promote well-considered innovation. The quality indicators are a guide in that process and not a set of recipes for success. They sit alongside professional expertise and other sources of guidance, for example on the curriculum, on learning, and on the leadership of change, in contributing to a lively debate about quality and the factors involved in achieving it in any playroom, nursery class and school. Appended are: (1) The Six-Point scale; (2) The Relationship Between the quality framework of indicators and the ten dimensions in Part 2 of the Journey to Excellence; and (3) A Common Approach Across all Public Services. (Contains 22 footnotes.)