Pioneers Russell Street & Nursery

Education institution number:
83008
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
75
Telephone:
Address:

76 Russell Street, Dunedin Central, Dunedin

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Pioneers Russell Street & Nursery

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 Pioneers Russell Street and Nursery are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

(What the service knows about outcomes for learners)

Whāngai Establishing

Ngā Akatoro Domains

 

Learning Conditions
Organisational Conditions

Whāngai Establishing

Whakaū Embedding

2 Context of the Service

Pioneers Russell Street Preschool and Nursery is one of five services owned by a charitable trust known as the Dunedin Community Childcare Association, operating as Pioneers. A governance board of elected parents oversees the work of Pioneers. The new director has overall responsibility for the operation and professional leadership of the association.

This centre has an increasingly diverse learning community. About 16 percent of children are identified as Māori. Almost all staff are qualified early childhood teachers. Good progress has been made with addressing recommendations from the 2018 ERO report.

3 Summary of findings

Children play and learn in two separate, adjacent buildings that are very well resourced to support ongoing learning and exploration. Older children are purposefully engaged in a thoughtfully planned curriculum, where their learning is fostered by teachers who know them well. Pioneers’ services are taking a planned approach to further developing and embedding the enacted bicultural curriculum.

Infants and toddlers experience intentionally well-paced daily transitions and routines that are integrated into their learning. Teachers use a wide range of nurturing strategies that foster playfulness and help build a strong sense of wellbeing.

Leaders and teachers work collaboratively to design and implement a broad curriculum that is informed by individual children’s assessment and planning. Evaluation of learning and teaching is yet to be fully implemented, and refining assessment, planning and evaluation processes is ongoing. Children are not yet able to independently revisit their learning records while at the centre.

Leaders and teachers have established, and are beginning to embed, the organisational conditions that enable collaboration for improvement. They provide distributed leadership opportunities and use a systematic approach to internal evaluation. However, they are yet to consistently monitor and evaluate changes made on outcomes for children and to report an overview of these to the board.

Those responsible for governance and management:

  • develop policies and procedures that are fit for purpose, guide inclusive practice across the association and make explicit the expectations of leaders, teachers and staff

  • allocate resources that place children and whānau at the centre of decision making

  • promote a positive working environment that facilitates low turnover of staff

  • are at the early stages of implementing their ongoing learning to enact the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by recognising Māori as tangata whenua and engaging in treaty-based practices.

Improvement actions

Pioneers Russell Street and Nursery will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

  • Continue to develop and embed the enacted bicultural curriculum that recognises the significance of mana whenua.

  • Further develop and streamline assessment, planning and evaluation processes and practices to clearly show the progress of children’s learning over time against the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.

  • Explore and implement ways that children can independently access their own learning records while at the centre.

  • When reporting to the board, regularly provide an overview of outcomes from internal evaluation for groups of children, and all children.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Pioneers Russell Street and Nursery 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

Pioneers Russell Street & Nursery

Profile Number 

83008

Location

Dunedin

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

65 children, including up to 28 aged under 2

Percentage of qualified teachers

80-99%

Service roll

72

Review team on site

May 2023

Date of this report

20 September 2023

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, September 2018; Education Review, February 2015

Pioneers Russell Street - 06/09/2018

1 Evaluation of Pioneers Russell Street

How well placed is Pioneers Russell Street to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.

Background

Pioneers Russell Street is one of four centres under the Dunedin Community Childcare Association, trading as Pioneers. Pioneers is a not for profit organisation and has four centres and three home-based care networks. A governance board oversees the work of Pioneers. A director acts as the operational manager and leader of learning. Pioneers aims to ‘provide accessible, affordable and flexible quality education and care for families of Dunedin’.

Pioneers Russell Street (Russell Street) is a full-day service in central Dunedin. Children from around two years to school age attend the centre and learn in a mixed-age setting. This community-based centre has recently had physical improvements to the indoor environment. The centre provides healthy food for the children.

Russell Street has a head and assistant head teacher. The head teacher is responsible for the day-to-day management and shares curriculum leadership with her assistant. Since the 2015 ERO review, there have been some staff changes. Most of the teachers are qualified early childhood educators.

The centre philosophy is to support children to believe in themselves and their capabilities, make their own choices and be resilient. It states that the natural world, sustainability, physical activity and social competency will be promoted through positive relationships, a bicultural curriculum and family-like environment.

This review was part of a cluster of four early learning services reviewed in the Pioneers (DCCA) organisation.

The Review Findings

Russell Street provides a learning environment that is calm and welcoming to all children, their parents and wider whānau. Children settle quickly on arrival and know the well-established but flexible routines. Children show respect for each other and their centre environment. There are caring and nurturing relationships between teachers and children.

Children are empowered to make choices and take on leadership roles. They learn how to be responsible for their learning, and for the wellbeing of themselves and others. The centre’s treaty is demonstrated by children and teachers having respectful, caring and responsive interactions.

Children’s learning is well supported by centre priorities that are evident in practice. The teachers purposefully involve children in making decisions about their learning. This includes what resources are used, and how their environment is set up. They support children’s oral language development, while making links to what the group is focusing on.

Russell Street has a rich and varied curriculum where children learn about the natural world including sustainability, social competence, early literacy and mathematics. Children learn and play in an environment that is thoughtfully presented, and where creative expression, art exploration and dramatic play are supported.

The outside environment is varied to encourage physical activity and exploration. Well-presented visual displays provide useful information for parents and enable children to revisit their learning. Māori concepts and te reo Māori are integrated into the day-to-day programme.

Teachers plan well for group learning practices. These plans have learning outcomes and describe teachers’ strategies, and have a clear link to the centre's learning priorities.

Leaders and teachers are improvement focused and have effective internal-evaluation practices. These have led to well-informed and ongoing improvements to children’s learning and wellbeing across the centre.

Teachers at Russell Street are well supported both with their wellbeing and professionally. Teachers’ strengths are valued and they benefit from relevant professional learning and leadership opportunities.

Key Next Steps

Individual assessment and planning practices need to be strengthened, in particular making visible in learning stories:

  • responses to parents' aspirations
  • how the teacher has or will deepen children's learning
  • children's cultural identity.

Pioneers Association - Governance

Pioneers has sound governance practices. Board members have a good understanding of their governance role, and have relevant skills and work experience. The director, centre leaders and teachers have developed well-considered strategic goals and useful long and short term plans. Initiatives and practices across the centres are intentionally aligned to these. Teachers and leaders feel valued and very well supported by the director and board.

The director has implemented useful systems and practices that contribute to the smooth operation of the centres through a period of significant change. Valuable relationships have been built with social and educational organisations beyond the association, with the intent of improving educational provision and children's wellbeing.

The director and ERO have identified that the next steps are to continue to:

  • implement the new and improved appraisal system, including teaching as inquiry
  • extend quality assurance to further identify and share best practices across all centres so that any additional support required is identified

  • build links with local iwi and Māori whānau to enable rich learning about te ao Māori across all centres
  • support centres to develop more useful annual action plans and improve reporting against these.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Pioneers Russell Street 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.

Next ERO Review

When is ERO likely to review the service again?

The next ERO review of Pioneers Russell Street will be in three years.

Alan Wynyard

Director Review & Improvement Services Southern

Te Waipounamu - Southern Region

6 September 2018

The Purpose of ERO Reports

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.

2 Information about the Early Childhood Service

Location

Dunedin

Ministry of Education profile number

83008

Licence type

Education & Care Service

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

40 children, including up to 5 aged under 2

Service roll

50

Gender composition

Girls: 23 Boys: 27

Ethnic composition

Māori
Pākehā
Other ethnicities

10
40
4

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

1:8

Better than minimum requirements

Review team on site

June 2018

Date of this report

6 September 2018

Most recent ERO reports

 

Education Review

February 2015

Education Review

December 2011

Education Review

November 2008

3 General Information about Early Childhood Reviews

ERO’s Evaluation Framework

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:

  • Pou Whakahaere – how the service determines its vision, philosophy and direction to ensure positive outcomes for children
  • Pou Ārahi – how leadership is enacted to enhance positive outcomes for children
  • Mātauranga – whose knowledge is valued and how the curriculum is designed to achieve positive outcomes for children
  • Tikanga whakaako – how approaches to teaching and learning respond to diversity and support positive outcomes for children.

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.

ERO’s Overall Judgement and Next Review

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:

  • Very well placed – The next ERO review in four years
  • Well placed – The next ERO review in three years
  • Requires further development – The next ERO review within two years
  • Not well placed - The next ERO review in consultation with the Ministry of Education

ERO has developed criteria for each category. These are available on ERO’s website.

Review Coverage

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.