113 Harbourside Drive, Papakura
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 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 Karaka Learning Centre 2 are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whakaū Embedding |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whakaū Embedding Whakaū Embedding |
Karaka Learning Centre 2 is one of two licensed centres which operate within the Karaka Learning Service complex. The service provides age-appropriate environments in three separate spaces for children from infants to school age. A centre manager oversees the daily operation of the services. A very small number of children from Māori and Pacific cultures attend.
Children experience an unhurried curriculum. The calm and slow pace provides them with:
space and time to lead their learning
time to build consistent relationships with their peers and teachers, which meets their need for strong and secure attachments.
Successful partnerships between parents, whānau and teachers acknowledge aspirations for children’s learning and foster successful transitions into and within the service.
Teachers use assessment information effectively to inform planning and the curriculum. Leaders and teachers have been involved in extensive professional learning, which has enabled them to build a shared understanding of how assessment drives curriculum planning. They regularly reflect on and evaluate children’s learning and development.
Children learn within an inclusive curriculum where leaders and teachers:
are responsive to the individual needs of children and their families
actively work to identify and remove barriers to children’s full participation in learning
view and respond to children up to the age of two years as confident learners
develop extensive individual learning and care plans for children with additional learning needs, which are shared and discussed with parents and external agencies.
Continuing to develop the bicultural curriculum is a service priority. It is currently evident in documentation and ongoing monitoring through teachers’ practice reflections and staff appraisals. However, teachers’ and children’s use of te reo and tikanga Māori is not yet as visible in practice.
Leaders and teachers engage in frequent professional discussions and critical reflection that support ongoing development. A culture of high relational trust supports collaboration in making changes to the curriculum and teaching practices.
Leaders have a focus on continual improvement and show a commitment to the service’s philosophy, vision, and goals. Reviews and internal evaluation are intentional, and their purpose is well understood. To sustain quality improvements for children, leaders could collect a wider range of data to analyse. This would help to improve monitoring and evaluating of the annual planning and strategic goals. This evaluation would include identifying the impact of actions taken, and progress towards meeting these goals.
Karaka Learning Centre 2 will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:
Leaders and teachers to increase opportunities for children to experience a bicultural curriculum.
Continue to grow teachers’ evaluative thinking and reasoning capability for doing and using internal evaluation to monitor and improve outcomes for children.
Before the review, the staff and management of Karaka Learning Centre 2 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.
Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki
4 October 2022
|
Early Childhood Service Name |
Karaka Learning Centre 2 |
|
Profile Number |
25277 |
|
Location |
Papakura, Auckland |
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
|
Number licensed for |
90 children, including up to 50 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80-99% |
|
Service roll |
77 |
|
Review team on site |
July 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
4 October 2022 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, November 2018 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Karaka Learning Centre 2 is one of two privately owned centres operating from within the Karaka Learning Service complex. The service provides full-day care and education for up to 115 children aged between four months and school age. Children are generally grouped according to age.
Three centres operate under the Karaka Learning Centre 2 licence. Centre 1 caters for children from two to four years of age. Centre 2 caters for children from two and a half years to school age. Centre 3 caters for children from four months to two and a half years of age. Each centre has a separate outdoor play area and access to an on-site heated swimming pool in the summer months.
The vision for the centre is 'Learn to Love to Learn'. The philosophy is under review at present. Parents are able to contribute to this review process online.
The centre is managed and led by a team of senior staff. Supervisors lead teaching teams in each centre, and a manager and safety officer take overall responsibility for day-to-day operations. Curriculum development is a shared responsibility.
The 2015 ERO report noted that the development of bicultural practice was beginning, there had been improvements in recording children's learning in portfolios, and that effective processes had been established to help children transition through the centres. Relationships with children and families were positive and friendly, and management was efficient. All of these aspects have been maintained.
The 2015 ERO report also highlighted the need for teachers to more closely focus on children's interests as a starting point for planning programmes. It also recommended that literacy and mathematics be incorporated more incidentally as a part of play. Further leadership and development is required in both of these areas.
This review was part of a cluster of two reviews in the Karaka Learning Centre service.
Children and whānau are warmly welcomed at the start of the day. Children settle well with positive encouragement from teachers in the early morning session. They self-select from the resources and pre-set activities provided, and engage quickly in play. Generous numbers of staff mean there are very good opportunities for whānau to have friendly conversations with teachers and share information about their children.
Children up to two years of age are settled and trusting with teachers. Teachers foster younger infants' developing language by having meaningful conversations with them. This also supports children's sense of wellbeing and belonging in the centre.
Transitions through the centres are planned and unhurried. Children with diverse needs are carefully included in programmes and are well supported by additional staff, specifically employed for this purpose.
During set times, children engage in free play outdoors where they demonstrate and develop friendships and collaborate with one another. They are carefully supervised and chat freely with teachers. Teachers should consider ways to engage children in more direct conversations about their play at such times. They should also consider using more open-ended questioning and problem-solving prompts to encourage children to deepen and extend their play.
Teacher-led group and individual learning times dominate the first part of the day. These programmes are structured and focused on learning academic skills in reading, writing and mathematics. This approach does not reflect the learning through play focus of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.
Teachers keep parents well informed about children's participation and progress over time using an on-line portal. Some parents also use this portal to share photographs and brief accounts of children's home life. These entries add to teachers' information about the children in their care. Parents speak well of the support teachers provide, and of the warmth and welcome they receive at the centre.
Teachers have made progress in reflecting the bicultural emphasis of Te Whāriki. A staff member has helped to strengthen teachers' confidence and use of both te reo and tikanga Māori within the programme. Teachers are now well poised to continue their bicultural journey with children. This should include a stronger focus on supporting Māori children's success as Māori.
Policies and procedures, and other aspects of management, including some strategic and annual planning, are fully documented, sometimes overly so. Links between documents need to be strengthened. The appraisal processes are under review at present, and health and safety requirements are rigorously implemented and well monitored.
Service leaders should streamline policies and procedures to reduce over-documentation and support teachers to continue to:
develop learning programmes that are aligned with the expectations in Te Whāriki about play-based, child-led programmes that respond to children's interests and strengths
engage children in conversations that promote thinking and problem-solving
strengthen staff involvement in internal evaluation that focuses more strongly on outcomes for children
develop bicultural practices in the programme.
It is timely for management to seek professional support to build leadership capability and develop an action plan that supports teachers to implement Te Whāriki expectations. This plan should set service-wide goals that are included in strategic and annual plans and in appraisal processes.
Before the review, the staff and management of Karaka Learning Centre 2 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:
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 Karaka Learning Centre 2 will be in three years.
Violet Tu’uga Stevenson
Director Review and Improvement Services
Te Tai Raki - Northern Region
9 November 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.
|
Location |
Karaka, Auckland |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
25277 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
115 children, including up to 29 aged under 2 years |
||
|
Service roll |
62 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Girls 31 Boys 31 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori |
7 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80% + |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:4 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
1:10 |
Meets minimum requirements |
|
|
Review team on site |
August 2018 |
||
|
Date of this report |
9 November 2018 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s)
|
Education Review Education Review
Previously reviewed as Karaka Learning Centre 1,2,3 |
March 2015 March 2012 |
|
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 ERO’s Approach to Review in Early Childhood Services.
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.
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Karaka Learning Centre 2 is one of two privately owned licensed centres operating from within the Karaka Learning Centre complex. Licensed for 115 children, the service provides full day care and education in a semi rural setting for children from three months to school age.
Three centres operate under the Karaka Learning Centre 2 licence. Centre 1 caters for children from two to four years of age. Centre 2 caters for children from two years to school age. Centre 3 caters for children from three months to two and half years of age. The service is well resourced with spacious outdoor play areas which includes timetabled access to a heated swimming pool.
The administration of all the learning centres that make up the complex is managed centrally by a dedicated team. The teaching team is led by a curriculum leader and the three centre supervisors. Each centre has a high proportion of qualified staff and also employs educators who are completing early childhood teacher education qualifications.
The team has made progress addressing the findings of the 2012 ERO report. Recent changes in management and leadership positions have resulted in the appointment of a curriculum leader. She and the three centre leaders are now working as a team as the owner begins to step back from day-to-day management and leadership of the centre.
Children and their whānau are welcomed on arrival into the centre and children settle quickly. The level of staffing offers good opportunities for teachers to engage daily with whānau and build partnerships with their parent community. Parents speak appreciatively of the centre’s outdoor spaces, communication with families and how well children transition through the three separate learning spaces.
Bi-cultural practice, a strong element of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum is developing. Following earlier professional development the team is planning to implement ideas and strategies to give greater recognition to the bi-cultural heritage of Aotearoa, and to strengthen the centre's acknowledgement of each child’s cultural identity.
Children aged up to two are settled and busy. They freely access a wide range of resources and engage in play of their own choice. Some staff effectively encourage children’s development of language through positive conversations as children play. This good practice could now be extended to all staff.
The outdoor environments provide opportunities for children to explore and make choices. Teachers provide a number of activity options and opportunities for group and individual physical play. Teachers could now use best practice benchmarks to review the effectiveness of their work with children. They could deepen their understanding of how young children gain literacy and numeracy skills in meaningful contexts as part of play.
Teachers plan the programme together. It is strongly based on activities they believe will interest children. While teachers are beginning to make portfolios more personalised to individual children’s learning, these records do not clearly show that children’s interests guide the programme. Teachers should also consider how they can make the programme more responsive to the contributions of children, parents and whānau.
Transitions between the centres are planned and unhurried. Teachers support and encourage children to gain independence and take increasing responsibility for their own belongings and self care as they move through the centres. By the time the children reach the preschool area they are managing their individual food and care routines independently.
Teachers keep parents well informed about their children’s time in the centre. Formal parent teacher interview are held regularly. Managers are considering moving to on-line portfolios as a way of informing parents about children’s progress and their activities. This could also provide a good opportunity for teachers to comment about children’s learning through play.
Staff have undertaken a number of internal professional learning programmes. Centre managers agree that consideration now needs to be given to regularly accessing externally sourced, centre-wide, professional learning opportunities for teachers.
Policies and procedures are comprehensive and regularly reviewed and modified where necessary. Appraisal processes have recently been reviewed. The curriculum leader appropriately intends to access external support for her appraisal. External support and increased opportunities to network with other early childhood centres would further strengthen and enhance the centre’s professional learning and appraisal processes.
During the review ERO discussed with centre managers aspects of the centre programme, including the philosophy and the centre's school readiness programme. It would now be timely for the staff to review the programme to determine how well this meets the expectations for early childhood learning outlined in Te Whāriki. Developing philosophical statements about teaching and learning for each specific age group would provide a good starting point in this process.
ERO and centre managers have agreed that:
Before the review, the staff and management of Karaka Learning Centre 2 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:
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:
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 Karaka Learning Centre 2 will be in three years.
Dale Bailey
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern Northern Region
4 March 2015
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 |
Papakura, Auckland |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
25277 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
115 children, including up to 29 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
91 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Boys 54 Girls 37 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori Pākehā Latin American other |
10 73 2 6 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80% Based on funding rates |
80% |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:3 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
1:8 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
|
Review team on site |
December 2014 |
||
|
Date of this report |
4 March 2015 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s)
|
Education Review |
March 2012 |
|
|
Previously reviewed as:Karaka Learning Centre No. 1 Karaka Learning Centre No. 2 Karaka Learning Centre No. 3 |
|||
|
Education Review |
February 2009 |
||
|
Education Review |
November 2008 |
||
|
Education Review |
March 2011 |
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 ERO’s Approach to Review in Early Childhood Services.
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.