100 Boundary Road, Blockhouse Bay, 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 |
| Curriculum | Meeting |
| Premises and facilities | Meeting |
| Health and safety | Meeting |
| Governance, management and administration | Meeting |
During the onsite visit, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed non-compliance and is now taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.
Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre is located on the grounds of Lynfield College. A qualified centre manager leads a team of seven qualified teachers and a non-registered teacher. The community is ethnically diverse. Over a third of the children enrolled are Māori or have Pacific heritages.
Teachers engage in meaningful, positive interactions to enhance children’s learning and nurture reciprocal relationships. Their practice demonstrates an understanding of children’s learning and development, as well as knowledge of relevant theories and practice in early childhood education.
The service curriculum supports children’s developing social competence and understanding of appropriate behaviour.
Positive steps are taken to respect and acknowledge the aspirations held by parents and whānau for their children. Information and guidance are sought, when necessary, from agencies and services to enable teachers to work effectively with children and their parents.
Next steps include:
During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence to show the following non-compliance had been addressed:
The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.
Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)
11 December 2023
| Early Childhood Service Name | Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre |
| Profile Number | 20102 |
| Location | Blockhouse Bay, Auckland |
| Service type | Education and care service |
| Number licensed for | 30 children, including up to 6 aged under 2 |
| Percentage of qualified teachers | 100% |
| Service roll | 41 |
| Review team on site | October 2023 |
| Date of this report | 11 December 2023 |
| Most recent ERO report(s) | Akarangi | Quality Evaluation, March 2021; Education Review, June 2017 |
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.
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:
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:
As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO also gathers and records evidence through:
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 Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre are as follows:
Outcome Indicators | ERO’s judgement |
| What the service knows about outcomes for learners | Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Ngā Akatoro Domains | ERO’s judgement |
He Whāriki Motuhake The learner and their learning | Whakaū Embedding |
Whakangungu Ngaio Collaborative professional learning builds knowledge and capability | Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Ngā Aronga Whai Hua Evaluation for improvement | Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Kaihautū Leaders foster collaboration and improvement | Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Te Whakaruruhau Stewardship through effective governance and management | Whakaū Embedding |
Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre is located on the school grounds of Lynfield College. An experienced centre supervisor leads a team of seven qualified teachers and two support staff. The centre serves a diverse multicultural community. Some of the teachers speak the home languages of the children attending.
Children have a strong sense of belonging in the centre environment. Kaiako view children as confident and capable, independent learners. They provide equitable opportunities for children to learn in a well-resourced, inclusive environment.
Children’s interests and abilities inform the curriculum. Leaders and kaiako provide a rich, responsive curriculum that promotes children’s thinking and experimentation. Leaders and kaiako know their children well as learners and scaffold their development. Kaiako work in partnership with parents and whānau to support their aspirations for their children’s learning.
Kaiako come from diverse cultural backgrounds and are well positioned to be culturally responsive to children and their families. Concepts of whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and tuakana/teina relationships support success for Māori children. They use te reo Māori widely throughout the programme.
Infants and toddlers receive very good care. Positive interactions and relationships foster secure attachments. Children’s social and emotional development is promoted by kaiako. They thoughtfully incorporate opportunities for children to further their oral language development. This encourages children to be expressive in their home languages and English. The service has been responsive to identify and support children with additional needs.
The service has established internal evaluation processes to evaluate improvement over time. Ongoing and relevant professional learning and development influences evaluative thinking and practice. Leaders and kaiako participate in relevant professional learning to strengthen a shared understanding of curriculum, assessment practices, teaching and learning.
A parent management committee governs the service. The committee has a high level of trust in the centre supervisor to enable positive outcomes for children. Leaders collaboratively enact the service’s philosophy, vision and goals and implement policies, procedures and practices that prioritise children’s wellbeing, learning and development.
Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:
Before the review, the staff and management of Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre 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.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki
12 March 2021
| Early Childhood Service Name | Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre |
| Profile Number | 20102 |
| Location | Blockhouse Bay, Auckland |
| Service type | Education and care service |
| Number licensed for | 30 children, including up to 6 aged under 2. |
| Percentage of qualified teachers | 80%+ |
| Service roll | 37 |
| Ethnic composition | Māori 3 NZ European/Pākehā 5 Indian 9 Chinese 8 Tongan 4 other Pacific 4 other ethnic groups 4 |
| Review team on site | December 2020 |
| Date of this report | 12 March 2021 |
| Most recent ERO report(s) | Education Review, July 2017 Education Review, November 2013 |
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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.
Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre is located in the grounds of Lynfield College. It provides education and care for 30 children, including six up to two years of age, for staff at the college and families in the wider community.
Younger children have separate indoor and outdoor spaces. They are well supported by their primary caregivers to join the older children for meals and play. The centre serves a culturally diverse community and benefits from culturally diverse staff. Teachers speak a number of languages other than English, including Mandarin and Gujarati.
Teachers are experienced and well qualified and most have worked at the centre for a number of years. In August 2016, the long-serving supervisor retired and an experienced member of staff was appointed to the position. A management committee made up of parent and staff representatives provides governance and management support for the centre. The current chairperson is a teacher at the college.
The centre's philosophy promotes a child-centred curriculum with a strong focus on supporting children's social and emotional competence. It also highlights the importance of partnerships with parents in supporting children's learning and care needs.
The 2013 ERO report identified many strengths about the centre including the positive interactions between teachers and children, and its child-led curriculum. The report suggested that teachers should plan to extend children's learning, and integrate te reo Māori through the programme. It also noted the need for improvements to self review and teacher appraisal processes. Good progress has been made in most of these areas.
Children at the centre are confident, happy and engaged in their play and learning. They are warmly welcomed at the start of the day, and settle to play in areas of their choice. Older children are especially independent in their play, and self-managing in their care needs. Children and families are well known by long-serving staff, who support children's sense of belonging and security in the centre. Older children are supportive of their younger friends, and are kind to each other. The centre environment is spacious. Children have free access to all areas of play, equipment and resources.
Teachers interact positively with children. They promote children's conversation about their play, and enhance oral language through waiata and storytelling. Literacy is encouraged through the centre and in the context of children's play. Materials for reading and writing are readily available for children. Teachers follow children's lead, and step in appropriately to prompt, suggest and extend their thinking. This good practice allows older children to collaborate with each other in uninterrupted, imaginative play. It also supports children's learning of mathematics and science concepts.
Teachers are respectful to children and each other. They provide a flexible and unhurried pace to the day, and respond well to children's needs and preferences. Teachers follow babies' and toddlers' cues and the routines established at home. Teachers are nurturing and affectionate, and they support younger children's exploration in the centre environment. The learning programme for babies and toddlers is based on the notice, recognise and respond approach. Teachers respond appropriately to children's developmental milestones.
Children experience a curriculum that is increasingly based on their emerging interests. Teachers plan for specific events and provide activities to meet and extend children's interests. Trips outside the centre connect to children's interests and offer children experiences in the wider Auckland environment. Teachers support children's learning of te reo Māori during group times.
The new centre supervisor has improved systems to ensure that the centre runs efficiently and legal requirements are met. She leads by example, and is providing a supportive, collaborative and strengths-based leadership approach. Teachers have good opportunities for professional growth through useful professional learning and inquiry-based appraisal.
Teachers' professional inquiries are research-based. They are aimed at improving practice and promoting positive outcomes for children. This good model of teacher appraisal also provides teachers with leadership opportunities. Managers are looking now to formalise observations of teachers' practice and to enhance how teachers reflect on their practice.
The management committee is well led and provides good support for the supervisor and staff. Committee members are dedicated to the centre's vision and future success.
Centre managers agree that key next steps for teachers include continuing to:
Next steps for management include:
creating a strategic plan that highlights the long-term goals for the centre
deeper evaluation of the impact of initiatives and programmes on improving outcomes for children and staff
aligning strategic planning, appraisal, professional learning and internal evaluation.
The management committee are keen to forge stronger connections with the Lynfield College board of trustees and to report regularly against the centre's strategic goals.
Before the review, the staff and management of Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre 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 Lynfield College Community Childcare Centre will be in three years.
Violet Tu'uga Stevenson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)
26 June 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.
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Location |
Blockhouse Bay, Auckland |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
20102 |
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Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
30 children, including up to 6 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
32 |
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Gender composition |
Boys 18 Girls 14 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
2 |
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Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80%+ Based on funding rates |
80% + |
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Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:5 |
Meets minimum requirements |
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Over 2 |
1:5 |
Better than minimum requirements |
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Review team on site |
May 2017 |
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Date of this report |
26 June 2017 |
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Most recent ERO report(s)
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Education Review |
November 2013 |
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Supplementary Review |
May 2012 |
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Education Review |
November 2008 |
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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 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.