Level 1 45 Camp Street, Queenstown
View on mapAkarangi | 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 in Home Childcare are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whāngai Establishing |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning Conditions
|
Whāngai Establishing |
Education Angels In Home Childcare is one of seven home-based education and care networks owned by Education Angels In Home Childcare Limited. Educators work within the Queenstown Lakes District area. An operations manager supports a team of eight qualified visiting teachers. A third of the children are from diverse cultural heritages. Progress is on-going towards key next steps identified in the February 2017 ERO report.
Children, including infants and toddlers, learn in a 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. A new visiting teacher provides a variety of group experiences to model the effective implementation of the curriculum, including oral language and cultural celebrations.
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 capability for their role through on-going professional development. Continuing to build their own and educators’ 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. However, not all visiting teachers have a well-developed understanding of how to ensure educators' homes maintain minimum requirements as specified by the regulatory standards and licensing criteria.
The organisation has several positive initiatives in the early stages of implementation, including strengthened induction and appraisal processes, and visiting teacher reporting to governance.
Education Angels in Home Childcare 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 leaning and progress over time in their assessment documentation
grow their own and educators’ capability to include te ao Māori perspectives and use te reo Māori more frequently within the curriculum and documentation
develop shared expectations of how the regulatory standards and licensing criteria are met and maintained in educators’ homes
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.
Before the review, the staff and management of Education Angels in Home Childcare 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.
Since the onsite visit, service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliances:
structures and/or fences and gates designed to ensure that children cannot leave the premises without the help or knowledge of the educator
heavy items that can fall or topple and cause serious injury or damage are secured
furniture or items intended for children to sleep on are arranged and spaced when in use so that adults have clear access to at least one side (meaning the length not the width) and are able to sit or stand safely as they wake
hazards to the safety of children are eliminated, isolated or minimised.
[Licensing Criteria for Home-based Education and Care Services 2008, PF11, HS6, HS9, HS11].
Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Acting, Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
14 February 2023
|
Early Childhood Service Name |
Education Angels in Home Childcare |
|
Profile Number |
45944 |
|
Location |
Queenstown |
|
Service type |
Home-based service |
|
Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
100% |
|
Service roll |
26 |
|
Review team on site |
November 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
14 February 2023 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, February 2017 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Little Sparks Queenstown is a home-based education and care service for children from birth-to- school age. Their care and learning is provided by educators (nannies or au pairs) in home settings. Some of the educators are qualified teachers.
The service is privately owned. The owner and coordinators are qualified early childhood teachers. They regularly visit educators in their homes and provide support and advice with the intention of ensuring children are well cared for and well supported in their learning and development.
The service's philosophy emphasises the importance of children learning in a safe, warm, nurturing and unhurried environment. Self-directed learning in the context of play are foremost within a stimulating programme. Educators see children as confident and capable learners.
ERO reviewed this service in 2013 and it received a very positive report. This review (2016) found that the service has continued to build on its strengths and made very good progress against the 2013 recommendations.
Coordinators provide high quality support for the educators, with a focus on what is best for children. Their visits focus on ensuring children are safe, well supported in their learning, and emotionally nurtured. Coordinators provide detailed oral and written feedback to educators about these areas. They model best practice and set useful goals with educators to best support children's learning.
ERO found strong evidence that educators are very well supported to:
respond to parents' wishes about their children’s learning and wellbeing
maintain frequent communication with parents about their children's play, wellbeing, learning and development
make meaningful use of home and community settings to enrich children’s learning.
There is a strong focus on children's learning. Coordinators discuss children's learning goals with educators. They provide specific ideas, and/or resources and encourage responsiveness to children's emerging interests. Coordinators work with the educators to ensure that changes and transition to school are managed in children's best interests.
Coordinators share best practice about the care, learning and development of infants and toddlers. They encourage close rapport between educators and babies. The home setting and low adult-to-child ratio create a nurturing environment for infants and toddlers.
The owner ensures educators have frequent opportunities to extend their understanding of current theories of learning, and how best to support children's learning and wellbeing. Coordinators build on this, in addition to sharing their own professional knowledge. Parents are often included in professional learning meetings.
Coordinators deliberately keep the service’s priorities, such as bicultural practices and child-led learning, to the fore. They encourage broad-learning experiences, such as physical exploration, a Māori dimension and early literacy. They model and support educators to document children's learning and involve parents in this process.
This service is very well managed and governed. It has clear strategic goals and useful plans to ensure that these are implemented to a high standard. Systems and practices within the service align well with its strategic goals. This has resulted in well-managed change and improvement.
The owner is continually exploring how the service could improve its provision for children. She seeks ongoing advice from an external consultant, and periodically undertakes external audits. She has built purposeful relationships with other local educational providers and community organisations. The appraisal system has been adapted and improved to align more closely with the Education Council expectations.
Positive relationships and effective communication are very evident in this service. The owner works closely with her coordinator team. She and her coordinators maintain regular contact with educators and families. They keep families well informed about events, service priorities and news.
Internal evaluation in this service is ongoing, systematic and focused on what is best for children. The owner and coordinators gather and analyse relevant information, including the views of parents. Past reviews have led to well-informed change and improvement. Although leaders have a sound understanding of effective internal evaluation, it would be useful to develop more detailed guidelines to document this process.
The key next steps for the owner and coordinators are to:
further develop guidelines/information for educators that detail how to best support children’s learning in a home setting
strengthen educators' planning and assessment of children's' learning.
Before the review, the staff and management of Little Sparks Queenstown 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.
This review found that the service had comprehensive policies, procedures and systems related to children's health and safety. These were regularly reviewed by the owner and were audited by an external provider. ERO recommends extending some risk-management plans for excursions by including more detail as to how adults would mitigate potential risks.
The next ERO review of Little Sparks Queenstown will be in four years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern Te Waipounamu
7 February 2017
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.
|
Location |
Queenstown |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
45944 |
||
|
Institution type |
Homebased Network |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 40 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
65 |
||
|
Standard or Quality Funded |
Standard |
||
|
Gender composition |
Girls: 38 Boys: 27 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori Pākehā |
1 64 |
|
|
Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
3 |
||
|
Required ratios of staff educators to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
|
|
Over 2 |
1:4 |
||
|
Review team on site |
November 2016 |
||
|
Date of this report |
7 February 2017 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report |
Education Review |
October 2013 |
|
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:
Pou Whakahaere – how the service determines its vision, philosophy and direction to ensure positive outcomes for children
Pou Ārahi – how leadership is enacted to enhance positive outcomes for children
Mātauranga – whose knowledge is valued and how the curriculum is designed to achieve positive outcomes for children
Tikanga whakaako – how approaches to teaching and learning respond to diversity and support positive outcomes for children.
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.