Education Angels

1 ERO’s Judgements

Akarangi | Quality Evaluation evaluates the extent to which this early childhood service has the learning and organisational conditions to support equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners. Te Ara Poutama Indicators of quality for early childhood education: what matters most are the basis for making judgements about the effectiveness of the service in achieving equity and excellence for all learners. Judgements are made in relation to the Outcomes Indicators, Learning and Organisational Conditions. The Akarangi Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform ERO’s judgements about this service’s performance in promoting equity and excellence.

ERO’s judgements for Education Angels are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Education Angels is one of seven home-based education and care networks owned and operated by Education Angels In Home Childcare Limited. An operations manager supports a team of eight qualified visiting teachers. Most children in this network are of Māori descent.

3 Findings

Children, including infants and toddlers, learn in a broad child-led, curriculum aligned with the organisation’s identified learning priorities and Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. They benefit from a wide range of indoor and outdoor learning experiences in educator’s homes and the wider community. There is a strong focus on children’s learning, including literacy, numeracy and science.

Visiting teachers effectively coach and mentor educators to implement a culturally responsive curriculum. Educators enhance children’s well-being and sense of cultural identity through close responsive interactions. Māori children’s sense of mana and belonging are well supported.

Daily contact in the homebased setting enables parents and educators to regularly discuss the child, their aspirations for learning and develop learning focussed relationships.

A new system for assessment planning and evaluation is yet to be fully implemented with all educators. The quality of assessment information is variable. Documentation does not consistently show children’s learning progress over time in relation to the priorities for learning and Te Whāriki learning outcomes. 

The visiting teachers are developing their capability for their role through on-going professional development. Continuing to build their confidence and capability to integrate te ao Māori within the curriculum, requires further, focussed attention.

On-going reflection and review results in changes to aspects of the service’s operation. Effective internal evaluation that focusses on outcomes for children is not yet well understood or implemented across the organisation.

Comprehensive policy, practices and procedures guide the operation of the organisation. There are clear expectations of visiting teacher’s roles and responsibilities for coaching and mentoring educators’ practice.  The organisation has several positive initiatives in the early stages of implementation, including strengthened induction and appraisal processes, and visiting teacher reporting to governance.

4 Improvement actions

Education Angels will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning for leaders and visiting teachers to:

• continue to develop all educators understanding and use of the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki to better show children’s learning and progress over time in their assessment documentation

•  grow their capability to include te ao Māori perspectives and use te reo Māori more frequently within the curriculum and documentation

• develop their understanding and use of all aspects of an effective internal evaluation process to better know what is working well or not and for whom within the network and across the organisation.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Education Angels completed an ERO Centre Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist. In these documents they attested that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet their legal obligations related to:

• curriculum

• premises and facilities

• health and safety practices

• governance, management and administration.

During the review, ERO looked at the service’s systems for managing the following areas that have a potentially high impact on children's wellbeing:

• emotional safety (including positive guidance and child protection)

• physical safety (including supervision; sleep procedures; accidents; medication; hygiene; excursion policies and procedures)

• suitable staffing (including qualification levels; police vetting; teacher registration; ratios)

• evacuation procedures and practices for fire and earthquake.

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

Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Acting, Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

14 February 2023 

6 About the Early Childhood Service