Educare Early Learning Centres

1 ERO’s Judgements

A Governing Organisation Evaluation evaluates the extent to which organisational conditions support equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners in the organisation’s services. Te Ara Poutama- indicators of quality for early childhood education: what matters most is the basis for making judgements about its effectiveness. The Governing Organisation Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this organisation’s performance.

ERO’s judgement for Educare Early Learning Centres is as follows:

ERO’s judgement Organisational Conditions

The organisation conditions encompass Ngā Akatoro | Domains of:

• Ngā Aronga Whai Hua | Evaluation for improvement.
• Kaihautū | Leadership fosters collaboration and improvement.
• Te Whakaruruhau | Stewardship through effective governance and management.

2 Context of the Governing Organisation

Educare Early Learning Centres is a national early childhood organisation comprised of 24 centre-based services in Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, and Canterbury. At the time of this evaluation all Educare Early Learning Centres were on a full licence.

A senior leadership team and the education team are responsible for the operations and management of the organisation’s services. Curriculum leadership is provided by the education team. Learn, Laugh, Play is the organisation’s vision for all children.

Findings from ERO’s evaluation at the governance and organisational level included evaluating the extent to which Educare Early Learning Centres strategic intentions, quality improvement systems, processes and practices support the provision of a quality curriculum at individual service level.

3 Summary of findings

Conditions supporting the organisation to effectively implement its philosophy and team culture include:

• a commitment and shared understanding of its vision, values, and priorities that are well embedded and used to promote children’s learning and development
• management systems and processes that are equitable and efficient to increase accountability and support ongoing improvement across its services
• creating a positive, respectful, and inclusive working environment to foster collective responsibility
• high relational trust that promotes reflective practice, teamwork, and collaboration
• strategic recruitment and placement of teachers within and across services to build capability and collective capacity
• careful and thoughtful selection and recruitment of staff to work with infants and toddlers.

Improvement strategies that the organisation is implementing well include:

• the Emerging Leaders programme that builds leaders and teacher capability to achieve positive outcomes for children
• a responsive and rich curriculum for infants and toddlers that promotes freedom of movement, independence and respect for their confidence and competency
• relevant professional learning and development initiatives, and the sharing of new knowledge across its services to inform and improve teacher practice
• an effective mentoring and coaching programme to support and grow leadership capabilities.

Te ao Māori practice has been identified as a long-term strategic goal. A recently developed Te Tiriti o Waitangi statement outlines the organisation’s commitment to Māori as tangata whenua, tamariki and whānau. Some links to local iwi and community groups within different regions have been established and support the organisation’s Reconnecting – Staying Connected initiative. The organisation has employed some kaiako who are Māori and exhibit exceptional knowledge, skills, and expertise in integrating te reo and tikanga Māori into a service curriculum. They could be used to provide leadership and grow capability in other Educare services.

Leaders have identified responding to Pacific learners as an area that requires development. Some centres have engaged with Tapasā: Cultural Competency Framework for Pacific Learners to support how teachers work more effectively with Pacific children, families, and communities. Accessing professional learning and development opportunities to further area managers’ and centre leaders’ capability to respond more effectively to Pacific learners is required.

Review and internal evaluation processes are established and used to improve aspects of practice, operations, and management within and across the organisation. Determining the effectiveness of initiatives and practices has yet to be well utilised to demonstrate equitable and excellent outcomes for all children.

The organisation has gathered some very useful information and high-level judgements about the performance of its services in relation to the implementation of its strategic initiatives. The evaluation of each initiative against the organisation’s described best practice indicators of high quality is yet to be well implemented. Once embedded it could provide reliable data about practice which demonstrates:

• how well these initiatives are being implemented
• the extent to which the identified learning outcomes are being achieved
• what difference these initiatives are making for teacher practice and outcomes for children
• additional professional learning and development support required and for whom
• recommendations, changes, and improvements as necessary.

At a regional level, the area managers are responsible for providing a regular report to each centre manager and teaching teams to support curriculum priorities. This could be further strengthened by:

• having a clear focus that links to the best practice indicators of high-quality education and care
• prioritising key areas of the curriculum with greater depth to enable reliable judgements to inform further planning decisions
• evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum for specific groups of children.

Area managers need to ensure that all its services health and safety practices are regularly monitored to meet regulatory requirements.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services.

ERO visited a sample of 10 services to verify what Educare Early Learning Centres knows about the quality of each of the services’ learning conditions and to what extent the organisational conditions support service improvement. ERO selected the service sample in consultation with the governing organisation.

The sampled services visited were in Northland and Auckland. Of the 10 services, three have experienced significant changes with leadership and/or teaching teams. Two of the four area managers took part in the visits.

Service leaders are well supported and guided by knowledgeable area managers. All services have established leaders who work collaboratively with their teams to provide effective coaching, mentoring and induction. Good relationships with parents and whānau have been established. The wellbeing of all children is prioritised.

Teaching practices and conditions that promote positive outcomes for children include:

• the enactment of centre philosophies and purposeful team culture that is highly evident in service environments
• highly responsive teachers engaging in respectful, reciprocal relationships with children to support learning
• aroha and care for all children facilitating positive and trusting relationships
• creating unhurried, calm, and peaceful learning environments for younger children inspired by RIE/Pikler philosophy
• meaningful engagement by some services with mana whenua and effectively working with external agencies to support the wellbeing of all children and whānau
• kaiako who role model with confidence the use of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori to support tamariki Māori
• teaching teams who successfully engage in meaningful connections with whānau Māori to foster a collaborative working relationship. They are taking steps towards supporting the development of learning-focused partnerships for tamariki Māori to achieve success and be affirmed in their identity
• working effectively with external agencies to support children with diverse learning needs
• resourcing and access to relevant professional learning and development to inform teacher practice enhancing children’s learning
• purposeful building designs that accentuate large spacious indoor and outdoor facilities. A wide range of appropriate resources and equipment to support the physical, emotional, and social development of children.

The localised curriculum has been an emphasis for the organisation’s services. In those sampled ERO found good practices for:

• supporting children and their families to transition to school through developing strong relationships with their local schools and new entrant teachers
• establishing or further strengthening relationships with local iwi, marae, to learn more about the history of their communities
• engaging effectively with parents and whānau in assessment practices
• using internal review processes for improvement.

Individual planning of children’s interests has been well documented.  Aligning children’s learning to the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum would better inform curriculum evaluation to identify its impact on outcomes for children.

5 Improvement actions

Organisation leaders have developed the necessary systems and processes to effectively undertake internal review. Most review activities are focused on what kaiako, and children are doing rather than evaluating how effectively or how well or which teaching practices support or detract from children’s learning.

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Educare Early Learning Centres will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning:

• undertake internal evaluation in relation to an aspect of the Emerging Leaders programme by drawing on the organisation’s best practice indicators with a focus on scrutinising leadership practices and using the findings for improvement
• develop and implement a Māori Strategy action plan to support services in their ongoing development of te ao Māori practices using current staff capability
• develop an organisation wide strategy for working with and alongside children of Pacific heritage, their families, and communities.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Educare Early Learning Centres completed an ERO Governing Organisation Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist. In these documents they stated that the organisation has the systems, processes, and practices to be assured that service providers for licensed services within the organisation are meeting legal requirements related to:

• curriculum
• premises and facilities
• health and safety practices
• governance, management, and administration.

The licensed service provider/s of the sampled services listed at the end of this report also completed an ERO Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist for their service. In these documents they attested that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet legal requirements, including those detailed in Ministry of Education Circulars and other documents, related to these areas.

All early childhood services are required to promote children's health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements.

More effective oversight and monitoring of the implementation of the Early Childhood Regulatory Standards and Licencing Criteria 2008 in each of the Educare Learning Centres is required. During its visits to sample services ERO identified the following non-compliances:

Non-compliances  

7 Next ERO Review

The next ERO review is likely to be in 14 - 18 months. ERO will visit a different sample of services at that time.

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

22 June 2023 

8 About the Governing Organisation

9 List of sampled services

All sampled services are on a full licence.

Services sampled in this evaluation: