15 Richmond Avenue, Richmond Heights, Taupo
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 Stepping Stones are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whāngai Establishing |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whāngai Establishing |
Stepping Stones’ philosophy highlights relationships and learning for children as part of a family. The service is provided within educarers’ homes. A small number of the enrolled children identify as Māori. The service owner works alongside a registered visiting teacher to support educarers.
Children’s learning is enhanced by consistent, reciprocal relationships with the adults supporting them. They are confident to explore and learn through regular playgroups, excursions, and the experiences of being in a home. Leaders effectively facilitate communication between educarers and families. Children benefit from a curriculum that supports their meaningful connection with each other, educarers and leaders.
Children up to three experience care and education that responds well to their needs. The weekly playgroup and other group events offer opportunities for children’s growing social and emotional competence to be fostered. Children revisit learning experiences in the educarer’s home and out in the wider community. Documentation of children’s learning captures their progress over time. However, leaders are yet to consistently reflect children’s individual culture and language in assessment practices.
Children’s learning and wellbeing are clear considerations in decision making by leaders. Children explore aspects of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori. Leaders use their knowledge of homebased care and education to promote and enact the service philosophy. Evaluation practices support improvement. However current areas of focus are yet to be evaluated for the leaders to know their impact for children and their families.
Opportunities for ongoing learning for children and educarers are well considered by leaders. Educarers are supported to develop their understanding and use of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Adults demonstrate a clear understanding of priorities for children’s learning. Intentional actions by the leader promotes positive outcomes for children.
Stepping Stones will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:
Purposefully seek the views of children, parents and whānau about their culture and language to inform planning for learning and assessment practices.
Further develop learning focused partnerships between leaders and parents, to support the well-established relationships between educarers and parents.
Review the local curriculum to reflect the service’s established priorities for learning and children’s culture and identity.
Before the review, the staff and management of Stepping Stones 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.
During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non‑compliances:
a record of excursions that includes the method of travel
a record of parental acknowledgement that medication has been administered.
[Licensing Criteria for Home Based Education and Care Services 2008, HS14, HS25].
Phil Cowie
Director Review and Improvement Services (Central)
Central Region | Te Tai Pūtahi Nui
16 September 2022
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Early Childhood Service Name |
Stepping Stones |
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Profile Number |
46706 |
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Location |
Taupō |
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Service type |
Home-based service |
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Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 |
|
Service roll |
26 |
|
Review team on site |
August 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
16 September 2022 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, September 2017 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Stepping Stones is a home-based education and care service located in a residential area of Taupo and complements the adjacent centre My Treehut. Stepping stones is privately owned and operated and is licensed for 80 children including up to 40 children under the age of two. At the time of this ERO review the roll of 29, included 3 Māori children.
In addition to the licensee who is the owner and director of the home-based care service, a qualified and fully registered visiting teacher co-ordinates and oversees the quality of education and care for the service. The visiting teacher has a focus on delivering targeted professional learning opportunities for educarers on a termly basis to develop their knowledge and skills in teaching and learning.
The services philosophy focuses on providing opportunities for children to play, rest, eat and grow in the comfort of the home. The philosophy promotes close relationships between the child, their whānau and the educarer. Children are supported to develop the identity of themselves as independent, competent and confident lifelong learners, able to challenge their own and others thinking and be successful in life. The service was created as a vision to promote positive learning situations for very young children in homes to allow the child to form strong attachments with one educarer.
This is the first ERO review for the Home-based service having been established in 2015.
Children benefit from positive feedback and interactions that contribute to authentic learning opportunities and outcomes. They are encouraged to participate in wider community activities that include playgroups, music sessions and visits to places of interest that enhance their emerging knowledge. Social competency and self-management skills are supported through high levels of engagement and intentional teaching moments. Children experience respectful and responsive learning relationships with adults.
Children up to the age of two enjoy positive and secure one to one interactions with the visiting teacher, educarers, families and whānau. Infants and toddlers are encouraged to follow their individual interests, and are empowered to make choices about their learning that is meaningful.
The curriculum is well-designed to promote positive and purposeful learning opportunities for children. Curriculum activities include participating in a range of music, science, literacy and numeracy learning opportunities. A bi-cultural curriculum promotes the learning of te ao Māori through te reo and tikanga, waiata, karakia and places of significance for children and their whānau. Effective planning and assessment practices value and respond to children’s interests, prior knowledge and ways of learning. Children experience a rich curriculum where they are listened to and encouraged to become confident and successful learners and explorers.
The visiting teacher has worked collaboratively with educarers to support and strengthen their knowledge of effective assessment practices. She models best practice to further strengthened educarers knowledge and understanding of effective teaching and learning. Clear expectations have been developed to support and guide educarers practice. Positive relationships between the visiting teacher, educarer, children and their families are promoting reciprocal learning partnerships that are purposeful and meaningful.
A robust internal evaluation process supports positive outcomes for children and ongoing improvement. An outcome of this process has been the development of a responsive curriculum through a continuous cycle of review and change.
The services philosophy, vision, goals and policies set clear direction for the service and guides day to day operations. A detailed strategic and annual plan clearly demonstrates how the vision and goals will be enacted. The owner/licensee provides strong support and mentoring for the visiting teacher through a robust appraisal system that guides quality practice and targeted professional learning. Children’s learning is well-supported through an effective and clear focus on providing educarers with rich knowledge and skills.
Leaders and ERO agree that to enhance the services provision for education and care consideration needs to be given to:
further assisting educarers to identify how to extend learning and show progress of learning over time
supporting educarers to recognise, affirm and document the language, culture and identity of each child as part of the assessment practice
encouraging parents to be more involved in making decisions for their child’s learning through the use of internal evaluation.
Before the review, the staff and management of My Treehut Stepping Stones 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.
The next ERO review of My Treehut Stepping Stones will be in three years.
Lynda Pura-Watson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Waikato/Bay of Plenty
12 September 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 |
Taupo |
||
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46706 |
||
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Institution type |
Homebased Network |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 40 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
29 |
||
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Standard or Quality Funded |
Standard |
||
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Gender composition |
Boys 16 Girls 13 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
3 |
|
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Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
One |
||
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Required ratios of staff educators to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
|
|
Over 2 |
1:4 |
||
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Review team on site |
July 2017 |
||
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Date of this report |
12 September 2017 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s)
|
No previous ERO reports |
||
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 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.