77 Aintree Avenue, Airpork Oaks, Mangere, Auckland
View on mapERO’s Akanuku | Assurance Review reports provide information about whether a service meets and maintains regulatory standards. Further information about Akanuku | Assurance Reviews is included at the end of this report.
Regulatory standards |
ERO’s judgement |
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Curriculum |
Meeting |
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Premises and facilities |
Meeting |
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Health and safety |
Meeting |
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Governance, management and administration |
Meeting |
At the time of the review, ERO found the service was taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.
Cute Kids is a homebased service that opened in 2016 and changed ownership in 2020. Governance and management are the responsibility of the coordinator who also provides curriculum support to educators. Children attending the service are of diverse cultural heritages.
The service curriculum is consistent with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Educators engage in meaningful, positive interactions to enhance children’s learning and nurture reciprocal relationships.
Educators respect and support the right of each child to be confident in their own culture and provide a language-rich environment that supports children’s learning.
The curriculum provides children with a range of experiences and opportunities to enhance and extend their learning and development both indoors and outdoors, individually and in groups. It is inclusive, and responsive to children as confident and competent learners.
Next steps are to:
increase the extent to which assessment information shows children’s cultures and their learning progress over time
increase the range of opportunities for children to hear and speak te reo Māori in meaningful learning contexts.
The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.
Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)
1 June 2023
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Early Childhood Service Name |
Cute Kids |
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Profile Number |
46929 |
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Location |
Mangere, Auckland |
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Service type |
Home-based service |
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Number licensed for |
50 children, including up to 50 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
8 |
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Review team on site |
April 2023 |
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Date of this report |
1 June 2023 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, August 2018 |
All services are licensed under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008. The legal requirements for early childhood services also include the Licensing Criteria for Education and Care Services 2008.
Services must meet the standards in the regulations and the requirements of the licensing criteria to gain and maintain a license to operate.
having its first ERO review – including if it is part of a governing organisation
previously identified as ‘not well placed’ or ‘requiring further development’
that has moved from a provisional to a full licence
that have been re-licenced due to a change of ownership
where an Akanuku | Assurance Review process is determined to be appropriate.
All early childhood services are required to promote children’s health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements. Before the review, the staff and management of a service 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.
As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO assesses whether the regulatory standards are being met. In particular, ERO looks at a 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; safety checking; teacher certification; ratios)
relevant evacuation procedures and practices.
As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO also gathers and records evidence through:
discussions with those involved in the service
consideration of relevant documentation, including the implementation of health and safety systems
observations of the environment/premises, curriculum implementation and teaching practice.
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Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Cute Kids in Glen Eden, Auckland, is licensed to provide home-based education and care for up to 50 children up to school age. Currently, 26 children are the on the roll, most of whom have Indian heritage. Staff communicate with families in both English and Hindi.
The philosophy of the service emphasises building strong bonds with whānau, educators, children and community. The philosophy is underpinned by the belief that a nurturing environment supports children to grow as competent and confident learners. Aligned to the philosophy is a guiding framework for weaving bicultural, multicultural and individual children's needs across all layers of learning.
The service has been operating since April 2016 and is led by a managing director/owner, business manager, technology and finance directors and a recently appointed visiting teacher. The visiting teacher is qualified in early childhood education and is working towards full registration. The management team and visiting teacher provide good support and guidance for the 10 educators working in their own homes across central and western Auckland.
This is the first ERO evaluation of Cute Kids.
Managers and the visiting teacher work well together as a professional and supportive team. They engage in robust discussions that support a culture of reflection, leading to ongoing improvement and innovation. The service's philosophy and strategic direction are understood and shared by all staff. The service's commitment to the development of bicultural practice is clearly evident.
Inclusive relationships across the service support children and educators' development. The management team seeks and values parent perspectives about the service. The visiting teacher is building positive relationships with educators and children. She is committed to educating parents about the importance of play.
Internal evaluation is a strength of the service. It is spontaneous, emergent or planned, and incorporates the points of view of many different people. There is good alignment between strategic planning, educator appraisals and professional development. Many opportunities are provided for staff to build and support their professional practice.
The visiting teacher shares sound curriculum knowledge with the educators. Together they provide a variety of learning opportunities that are responsive to the needs of individual children. The educators are beginning to work with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, at a range of different skill levels.
The visiting teacher supports educators to develop good planning and assessment practices. Educators benefit from her expertise in writing up children's learning stories and group planning. Monthly reports to educators from the visiting teacher provide good guidance for them to strengthen their knowledge in early childhood education. The visiting teacher has a genuine desire to empower both educators and children to learn.
Educators are well supported to grow professionally. The service's appraisal process identifies each educators' individual learning needs and this results in appropriate professional learning and development. The appraisal procedure for the visiting teacher is in the beginning stages of development. It is now timely to review and strengthen these processes.
Comprehensive and up-to-date policy, procedure, and management frameworks guide operational requirements. Effective systems are in place to monitor health and safety compliance. A recently developed smart-phone application supports the monitoring of health and safety checks and enables management, visiting teacher and educators' access to information in a timely manner.
The management team and visiting teacher agree that relevant priorities for development include continuing to:
build the management team's and educator's understanding of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, in order to support a more child-led programme
strengthen effective teaching practice
support all staff to build their bicultural understandings, and their knowledge and use of te reo and tikanga Māori
review and refine approaches to transitioning children onto other early learning services and school.
Before the review, the staff and management of Cute Kids completed an ERO Home-based Education and Care 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:
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.
The next ERO review of Cute Kids will be in three years.
Julie Foley
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)
Te Tai Raki - Northern Region
8 August 2018
The Education Review Office (ERO) is the government department that, as part of its work, reviews early childhood services throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. ERO’s reports provide information for parents and communities about each service’s strengths and next steps for development. ERO’s bicultural evaluation framework Ngā Pou Here is described in SECTION 3 of this report. Early childhood services are partners in the review process and are expected to make use of the review findings to enhance children's wellbeing and learning.
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Location |
Glen Eden, Auckland |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46929 |
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Institution type |
Homebased Network |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
50 children, including up to 50 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
26 |
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Standard or Quality Funded |
Standard |
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Gender composition |
Boys 19 Girls 7 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
3 |
|
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Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
1 |
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Required ratios of staff educators to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
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Over 2 |
1:4 |
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Review team on site |
July 2018 |
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Date of this report |
8 August 2018 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
No previous ERO reports |
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ERO’s overarching question for an early childhood education review is ‘How well placed is this service to promote positive learning outcomes for children?’ ERO focuses on the following factors as described in the bicultural framework Ngā Pou Here:
Within these areas ERO considers the effectiveness of arotake – self review and of whanaungatanga – partnerships with parents and whānau.
ERO evaluates how well placed a service is to sustain good practice and make ongoing improvements for the benefit of all children at the service.
A focus for the government is that all children, especially priority learners, have an opportunity to benefit from quality early childhood education. ERO will report on how well each service promotes positive outcomes for all children, with a focus on children who are Māori, Pacific, have diverse needs, and are up to the age of two.
For more information about the framework and Ngā Pou Here refer to the draft methodology for ERO reviews in Home-based Education and Care Services: July 2014
The overall judgement that ERO makes and the timing of the next review will depend on how well placed a service is to promote positive learning outcomes for children. The categories are:
ERO has developed criteria for each category. These are available on ERO’s website.
ERO reviews are tailored to each service’s context and performance, within the overarching review framework. The aim is to provide information on aspects that are central to positive outcomes for children and useful to the service.