82 Warrington Street, St Albans, Christchurch
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 |
|
Curriculum |
Meeting |
|
Premises and facilities |
Meeting |
|
Health and safety |
Meeting |
|
Governance, management and administration |
Meeting |
At the time of the review, ERO found the service was taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd is a privately owned and operated early learning service. It provides care and education for children up to two years old and serves a culturally diverse community. A centre manager oversees the running of the daily operations. There has been a change in ownership since ERO’s 2018 review.
Leaders and teachers engage in positive interactions to enhance infant and toddler learning and nurture reciprocal relationships. The curriculum provides a language-rich environment that reflects the principles of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, and the service’s philosophy that values Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The design and layout of the premises support the provision of different types of indoor and outdoor experiences including quiet spaces and areas for physically active play, appropriate to the number, age, and abilities of children attending.
There are suitable systems for governing and managing the service including an annual plan and ongoing monitoring of health and safety practices. A process of self-review results in changes being made when required.
Next steps include:
building centre leaders and teachers understanding of the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, and use these within planning assessment and evaluation practices.
The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
23 August 2022
|
Early Childhood Service Name |
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd |
|
Profile Number |
70143 |
|
Location |
Christchurch |
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
|
Number licensed for |
18 children aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80-99% |
|
Service roll |
20 |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori 2, NZ European/Pākehā 8, Other ethnic groups 10 |
|
Review team on site |
May 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
23 August 2022 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, June 2018; Education Review, November 2014. |
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 licence 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 regulated 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; police vetting; teacher certification; ratios)
evacuation procedures and practices for fire and earthquake.
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.
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery is well placed to provide positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd is one of three centres owned and operated by the same owner. The owner and an induction and mentoring manager maintain an oversight of, and support for, all three centres. This centre is a nursery centre that caters for the specific needs of infants and toddlers up to two years old. The other centres in this service cater for children aged from two to school age.
The programme at this centre incorporates Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) and Montessori approaches with Te Whāriki, the Early Childhood Curriculum.
Since the previous ERO review in November 2014 a new head teacher has been appointed. All staff are qualified and registered early childhood teachers. The managers and teaching team have made good progress in addressing the recommendations from the ERO report. The identified next steps from this report were to strengthen assessment, planning, evaluation and strategic planning.
This review was part of a cluster of three early learning centre reviews in the Learning Curves Montessori service.
Leaders and teachers actively foster trusting and nurturing relationships with children and families. Transitions into the service are personalised to the needs of infants and toddlers and focus on creating a positive sense of wellbeing and belonging.
Leaders and teachers use a purposeful range of strategies to effectively communicate and consult with families. Parent views and contributions to the learning programme are actively sought and well used to inform decision making and enrich the curriculum. The languages, culture and identity of each family are valued and celebrated. Children have opportunities to experience te ao Māori in ways that are meaningful for them and respectful of the Māori culture.
Children are at the heart of all decision making. Teachers maintain a calm and unhurried approach to sensitively interacting with children. They allow time and space for children to make choices and lead their own learning. Teachers skilfully notice and encourage children's interests and independence.
Teachers have a sound knowledge of each child and use this information to effectively engage children in meaningful, appropriate and fun learning. They are responsive to the individual needs and preferences of children. Children benefit from a wide range of interesting learning experiences, both within and beyond the centre.
Leaders are reflective and are successfully building respectful professional relationships that are focused on collaboration and ongoing improvement. They have effective systems in place, including comprehensive internal evaluation and robust appraisal processes to help them to build collective capability. Leaders and teachers have a shared focus on providing positive outcomes for children within an orderly and supportive environment.
The service owner is focused on outcomes for children. The owner and the manager provide regular feedback focused on improving outcomes for children. They promote staff strengths and provide well targeted professional learning and development opportunities related to centre and staff needs.
The owner, manager and ERO agree that the next steps to further improve the centre's good practices are to:
review and re-develop the philosophy to better reflect the uniqueness of the centre
continue to strengthen the focus on teaching and learning in assessment, planning and evaluation
continue developing strategic and annual planning and evaluation to better guide overall service and centre development.
Since the on-site stage of the review the service has provided additional evidence to ERO to show how it has responded to the identified Key Next Steps. It is too early for ERO to evaluate the impact of these changes on improving centre practices.
Before the review, the staff and management of Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd 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 Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd will be in three years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
26 June 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 |
St Albans |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
70143 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
18 children, including up to 18 children under two years old |
||
|
Service roll |
13 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Boys 10 ; Girls 3 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori Pākehā Other ethnicities |
3 8 2 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80% + |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:4 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
1:4 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
|
Review team on site |
May 2018 |
||
|
Date of this report |
26 June 2018 |
||
|
Most recent ERO reports |
Education Review Education Review |
November 2014 September 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.
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd is one of four centres with the same owner. The owner and a teaching and operations manager maintain an oversight of, and provide support to, all four centres. This centre is a nursery that is licensed for up to 18 children up to the age of two years. Children benefit from good child to teacher ratios that exceed minimum requirements. The other centres in this service cater for children aged from two to school age. Many of the children who attend the nursery move on to these centres. The programme is influenced by Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) and Montessori approaches, in combination with Te Whāriki, the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum. Since the September 2011 ERO review, there have been some changes in centre leadership and staff that have been anticipated and successfully managed.
This review was part of a cluster of four early childhood centre reviews in the Learning Curves Montessori service.
The centre leaders and teachers focus their attention and programme decisions on children’s needs and interests.
Teachers provide good opportunities for children to make choices in the daily programme and their routines.
Teachers form strong professional relationships with children and their families. Teachers get to know individual children and their families well. Key teachers use what they know about the children to respond effectively to interests and preferences. Staff are flexible in the daily programme to ensure that children’s needs come first. Children know the routines well and familiar adults effectively support their wellbeing and sense of belonging.
Teachers use an effective range of ways to communicate with parents. This includes:
Managers and teachers listen to parents' perspectives about their children and respond effectively to these suggestions.
The programme recognises children’s individual interests and strengths. Teachers support children to play well with each other. They maintain a calm, slow pace in the programme giving younger children space and time to lead their learning.
Teachers think carefully about how they can best respond to children in ways that promote their learning and wellbeing. Recent changes to the teacher appraisal system are helping staff reflect more regularly on the how well they interact with children and ways they can further improve their teaching. Managers and leaders provide specific and useful feedback to staff. Managers’ and leaders’ judgements on the quality of teaching were well reflected in the practices observed by ERO. These included:
Teachers prepare and adapt the environment so that children’s interests and learning are extended. They provide additional equipment based on what they know about individual children’s interests. Teachers introduce children to Montessori equipment, such as specialised mathematics puzzles, in ways that are meaningful and relevant for very young children. Teachers are now beginning to think more about how they can use the environment to provide more opportunities for children to engage with displays and recall and share their learning.
There is effective communication among staff and between staff and management. Teachers work well together during the programme and regularly talk together about how they are supporting particular children or celebrate what they notice about children’s achievements.
Leaders support teachers to regularly reflect on aspects of their practice, such as the way they set up the environment. Recent reflections on teachers' planning have resulted in changes that are making planning more collaborative and meaningful.
A clear management structure is supporting the centre’s development. A useful policy and procedure framework guides the successful operation of the centre. Managers provide good support for leaders, and make effective use of staff strengths. They have good systems that inform them about the quality of the teaching, curriculum and operation in each centre. Managers are responsive to identified needs and external feedback.
The service owner and the teaching and operations manager clearly articulate their expectations for high quality teaching and learning. The next step is to better document these expectations so they can be shared more easily with teachers, and used to monitor and evaluate centre effectiveness, to guide future planning.
The managers and ERO agree that the next steps to build on the centre’s good practices include:
Before the review, the staff and management of Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd 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 Learning Curves Montessori Nursery Ltd will be in three years.
Graham Randell
National Manager Review Services Southern Region
5 November 2014
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 |
St Albans, Christchurch |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
70143 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education and Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
18 children, including up to 18 aged under two |
||
|
Service roll |
18 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Boys 14 Girls 4 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori NZ European/Pākehā African |
2 15 1 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80%+ Based on funding rates |
80% + |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:4 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
|||
|
Review team on site |
August 2014 |
||
|
Date of this report |
5 November 2014 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report |
Education Review |
September 2011 |
|
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.