Nurtured at Home (Tauranga)

ERO Early Childhood Governing Organisation Initiating Evaluation Report

1 ERO’s Judgements

A Governing Organisation Evaluation evaluates the extent to which organisational conditions support equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners in the organisation’s services. Te Ara Poutama- indicators of quality for early childhood education: what matters most is the basis for making judgements about its effectiveness. The Governing Organisation Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this organisation’s performance.

ERO’s judgement for Nurtured at Home Limited is as follows:

ERO’s judgement Organisational Conditions

The organisation conditions encompass Ngā Akatoro | Domains of:

• Ngā Aronga Whai Hua | Evaluation for improvement.
• Kaihautū | Leadership fosters collaboration and improvement.
• Te Whakaruruhau | Stewardship through effective governance and management.

2 Context of the Governing Organisation

Nurtured at Home Limited is a privately-owned national early childhood organisation comprising 23 home-based education and care networks in the Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Manawatu Whanganui, Horowhenua, Wairarapa and Wellington regions. At the time of this evaluation all Nurtured at Home networks were on a full licence. The organisation is currently in the process of bringing on additional networks and growing its business.

The owners are members of the support and guidance management team. They provide operational and curriculum leadership to the networks. Strategic initiatives are underpinned by the organisation’s core values. These are expressed as the ‘3 Pillars’ of: Language, Culture, and Identity – Tangata Whenuatanga; People – Whanaungatanga; Growing Young Minds – Wānanga/Ako.

Findings from ERO’s evaluation at the governance and organisational level included evaluating the extent to which Nurtured at Home Limited strategic intentions, quality improvement systems, processes and practices support the provision of a quality curriculum at individual network level.

3 Summary of findings

Organisation owners and leaders are in the early stages of embedding quality practices. They support quality service provision through:

• ensuring that the primary considerations in decision making are the learning and wellbeing of children that focus on removing barriers to learning
• aligning resources to the organisation’s priorities to ensure all children have access to high quality, inclusive education and care
• having a focus on supporting the language, culture, and identity of children.

Conditions supporting the organisation to build an effective team culture include:

• highly respectful relationships underpinned by relational trust that fosters collaboration and openness to change and improvement
• well embedded strategic priorities and clear expectations for practice that are regularly monitored and reviewed to ensure ‘good things’ are happening for children
• clear policies, procedures, processes, and practices that provide ongoing assurance and accountability to leaders that regulatory requirements are monitored, met and maintained
• sound selection, induction and training processes for staff and educators are effectively implemented by key personnel.

Improvement strategies that the organisation implements well include:

• an effective distributed leadership model that promotes the organisation’s vision, philosophy, and strategic priorities aligned to and reflective of the Nurtured ‘3 pillars’ values
• the provision of translators to enhance the understanding of the languages, cultures and identities of families and educators from diverse communities to foster a culturally responsive curriculum that supports equitable outcomes for these learners
• intentional and cohesive professional learning and development that builds the knowledge and understanding of effective teaching and learning practices in home-based settings.

Owners and leaders are aware of the need, at an organisational level, to put a more deliberate emphasis on supporting Māori children to achieve success as Māori.

Service leaders have identified working effectively with Pacific children, families, and communities as an area to progress further. Giving emphasis to culturally responsive practices that support the learning of children and engagement with families and communities of Pacific heritage is an organisational priority.

Building evaluation capability across the organisation to enable all levels of the organisation to do and use evaluation for improvement more effectively is required. Some useful conditions have been established that enable leaders and visiting teachers to do and use evaluation for improvement. Leaders are yet to consistently show how all evaluation activities contribute to what works or doesn’t work and for whom and know the extent to which their strategic priorities and practices are being realised across all services in the organisation.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services

ERO visited a sample of 10 networks to verify what Nurtured at Home Limited knows about the quality of each of the services’ learning conditions and to what extent the organisational conditions support service improvement. ERO selected the network sample in consultation with the governing organisation.

Regional coordinators, visiting teachers, educators, and translators work collaboratively to enhance the learning and wellbeing of children.

Teaching and learning practices that promote positive outcomes for children include:

• educators working collaboratively with experienced and knowledgeable visiting teachers to provide anindividualised, rich and responsive curriculum
• well established relationships and effective communication with parents and whānau about children's interests and needs to support learning progress
• clear guidelines and expectations for educators to support progress and improvement of educator knowledge, skills and practices
• visiting teachers regular monitoring of curriculum provision, expectations of practice, and regulatory requirements for health and safety.

Specific strategies that are supporting positive outcomes for learners include:

• ‘Discovery Days’ that facilitate meaningful links and connections with local areas for children and their families
• play and music groups which enhance and extend the curriculum offered to children beyond the in-home care and education environment
• educator training plans that guide individualised learning for educators that builds on their knowledge, skills and abilities
• provision of additional resources for educators that enhance learning experiences for children.

Children’s learning records are yet to show their developing capabilities in relation to the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Improving visiting teachers and educators intentional planning to align to these outcomes for a more robust assessment of children’s learning and progress over time.

Some visiting teachers and educators are continuing to build their understanding of te reo and tikanga Māori, providing Māori learners with opportunities to hear and experience aspects of their own language and culture.

5 Improvement actions

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Nurtured at Home Limited will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning.

Organisation leaders to further embed internal evaluation through:

• building collective capability and capacity to do and use evaluation for improvement at all levels of the organisation
• improve the evaluation framework to better guide critical thinking and the depth of evaluation to inform improvements to teaching practices and the impact on learner outcomes
• a stronger focus on developing quality indicators to support evaluation of specific data to determine what works or what is not working and for which specific groups of children, to ensure equitable outcomes for all children.

Organisation leaders to continue to establish culturally responsive practice through:

• giving greater prominence to te ao Māori in key strategic documentation to sustain and build on current understandings and the implementation of te ao Māori across the organisation
• developing a Pacific strategy that promotes understanding and use of teaching practices that enhance culturally located learning for children of Pacific heritage.  

Visiting teachers and educators to:

• refine the planning and evaluation process to show children’s developing capabilities in relation to the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki
• work in partnership with parents to intentionally plan for children’s learning in relation to these outcomes
• ensure assessment documentation aligns to the agreed priorities for children’s learning over time.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Nurtured at Home Limited at completed an ERO Governing Organisation Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist. In these documents they stated that the organisation has the systems, processes, and practices to be assured that service providers for licensed services within the organisation are meeting legal requirements related to:

• curriculum
• premises and facilities
• health and safety practices
• governance, management, and administration.

The licensed service provider/s of the sampled services listed at the end of this report also completed an ERO Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist for their service. In these documents they attested that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet legal requirements, including those detailed in Ministry of Education Circulars and other documents, related to these areas.

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

The next ERO review is likely to be in 14-18 months. ERO will visit a different sample of services at that time.

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

21 July 2023

7 About the Governing Organisation

8 List of sampled services 

All sampled services are on a full licence. 

Services sampled in this evaluation: