Huntsbury Preschool Inc

Education institution number:
70373
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
26
Address:

30H Huntsbury Avenue, Huntsbury, Christchurch

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Huntsbury Preschool Inc

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 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 Huntsbury Preschool Inc are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

(What the service knows about outcomes for learners)

Whāngai Establishing

Ngā Akatoro Domains

 

Learning Conditions
Organisational Conditions

Whāngai Establishing

Whāngai Establishing

2 Context of the Service

Huntsbury Preschool Inc is governed and managed by a board of volunteer parents and a small team of qualified teachers. A new centre manager has been appointed since the 2021 ERO review. The preschool has a culturally diverse community, and enrolled children include a small group of Māori tamariki, and children of Pacific heritage. Since the 2021 report, progress has been made in relation to teachers making greater use of learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.

3 Summary of findings

Children experience a curriculum where the values of whanaungatanga (relationships) and manaakitanga (caring) are visible in daily engagement between children, parents, and teachers.

The bicultural curriculum is establishing. Teachers provide children with opportunities to learn about New Zealand’s bicultural heritage through learning about local places and events of significance and pūrākau (legends). Some te reo Māori is included in the daily programme and documentation.

Connections to children’s identity, languages and cultures are evident in their learning records, and some aspects are celebrated throughout the centre in print and displays. Opportunities for literacy, oral language, numeracy, and science are intentionally integrated in the curriculum. Children with additional needs are well supported in their learning.

Teachers have useful guidelines to plan, assess, and evaluate learning. Children’s assessment documentation forefronts the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki, and shows children’s progress over time in relation to these outcomes. Positive relationships with parents are evident. Teachers are increasingly working towards building learning-focused partnerships with all parents.

Leaders and teachers work collaboratively to build their professional practice. Self-review is used well to inform change by reflecting on existing practice, and there is a useful framework for internal evaluation. However, leaders and teachers are yet to:

  • make effective use of indicators to guide evaluations

  • gather evidence-based information to monitor the effectiveness of changes made on outcomes for identified individuals and groups of children.

The board is well informed about the day-to-day operations, but does not yet receive sufficient reporting about learning outcomes for children, or progress towards the preschool’s strategic goals. A greater focus on these aspects is required.

4 Improvement actions

Huntsbury Preschool Inc will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

  • Build learning-focused partnerships with all parents.

  • Provide the board with evaluative reporting that also includes reporting about outcomes for children.

  • Leaders and teachers to continue to build capability to do and use effective internal evaluation.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Huntsbury Preschool Inc completed an ERO 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; safety checking; teacher registration; ratios)

  • relevant evacuation procedures and practices.

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

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

20 September 2023

6 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name

Huntsbury Preschool Inc

Profile Number 

70373

Location

Christchurch

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

30 children over the age of 2 years

Percentage of qualified teachers

100%

Service roll

26

Review team on site

May 2023

Date of this report

20 September 2023

Most recent ERO report(s)

Akarangi | Quality Evaluation, March 2021
Education Review, June 2016

Huntsbury Preschool Inc

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. The Akarangi Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this service’s performance in promoting equity and excellence.  

ERO’s judgements for Huntsbury Preschool Inc are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

ERO’s judgement

What the service knows about outcomes for learners

Whakatō Emerging

Ngā Akatoro Domains

ERO’s judgement

He Whāriki Motuhake

The learner and their learning

Whāngai Establishing

Whakangungu Ngaio

Collaborative professional learning builds knowledge and capability

Whāngai Establishing

Ngā Aronga Whai Hua

Evaluation for improvement

Whakatō Emerging

Kaihautū

Leaders foster collaboration and improvement

Whakatō Emerging

Te Whakaruruhau

Stewardship through effective governance and management

Whakatō Emerging

2 Context of the Service

Huntsbury Preschool Inc is governed and managed by a board of volunteer parents and a small team of qualified teachers. The service provides education and care to children from two years to school age. Since the June 2016 ERO review, a new centre manager has been appointed from within the teaching team. The service has been through significant change since the previous ERO review.

3 Summary of findings

Kaiako establish and maintain responsive, respectful relationships and learning partnerships with children, parents and whānau. They purposefully enable children to participate fully in the curriculum provided. Kaiako are increasingly integrating te reo and tikanga Māori into the daily programme. Children experience an environment where their cultures and languages are recognised and valued.

Leaders and kaiako intentionally seek the views and aspirations of parents to inform children’s individual learning. They must now establish clear expectations for meaningful and intentional assessment, planning and evaluation practices. These should help to inform and support the implementation of a localised curriculum that promotes positive outcomes for children’s learning.

Board members, leaders and teachers are working positively together to update policies and to improve the effectiveness of systems across the service. Relevant annual and strategic plans guide the service’s operations and priorities.

The board, leaders and teachers have identified that they need to work collaboratively to further develop the conditions to establish and use internal evaluation for improvement. They recognise the importance of using external expertise to improve key areas of the service’s operations, including learning and teaching. While this work is in the early stages of development and implementation, the service is continuing to engage in ongoing learning to build shared understandings and collective capacity.

4 Improvement actions

Huntsbury Preschool Inc will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

  • consistently use the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki -the early childhood curriculum, to more clearly show how teachers intentionally assess and plan for children’s learning and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching
  • build shared understandings of the purpose and processes of internal evaluation to examine the effectiveness of improvements
  • develop effective, sustainable systems and processes and use internal evaluation to know how well the preschool is functioning in relation to curriculum, health and safety and human resources.
  • continue to engage in ongoing learning to develop leadership capacity and capability to establish the conditions for collaborative improvement.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Huntsbury Preschool Inc 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.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

16 March 2021 

6 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name Huntsbury Preschool Inc
Profile Number 70373
Location Christchurch

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

30 children, two years and over.

Percentage of qualified teachers

80%+

Service roll

28

Ethnic composition

Māori 6, NZ European/Pākehā 19, Other ethnicities 3.

Review team on site

October 2020

Date of this report

16 March 2021

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, June 2016; Education Review, February 2013.