6 Bellwood Avenue, Mount Eden, Auckland
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 Akarangi Quality 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 Kids at Play Childcare Centre are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning Conditions
|
Whakawhanake Sustaining Whakawhanake Sustaining |
Kids at Play Childcare Centre is a community based, not-for-profit early childhood service. A management committee of elected parents provide governance alongside the centre manager. There are 10 qualified teachers and four support staff. A small number of children attending are Māori.
Older children have close, positive relationships with their peers and teachers. Their learning environments promote independence, curiosity and risk taking. Children under the age of two years, experience calm, unhurried routines. Children’s mana and identity as capable learners is highly respected by teachers. A focus on improving the provision for children aged two to three years is a priority identified by the service.
Children learn in a play-based curriculum aligned with the principles and strands of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Their interests, abilities and learning dispositions are valued, and assessment of these curriculum priorities is used to inform individual planning and curriculum goals. Teachers’ effective practices enable children to sustain their interests and engage in meaningful learning experiences.
Teachers’ assessment information about children’s learning:
guides curriculum planning and intentional teaching practice very well
draws on parents’ knowledge about their child’s learning, which contributes to strong learning partnerships between parents and teachers
clearly identifies learning progress for individual children in relation to the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki.
Leaders drive a culture of continuous professional growth and capability, and they take professional responsibility to improve teachers’ practice. They are well supported by the service’s professional practice facilitator, and access to an external professional mentor.
Leaders maintain effective systems to sustain positive organisational conditions and support ongoing improvement:
Internal evaluation is intentional, aligns with strategic goals and is improvement focused.
Collaboration is fostered and sustains conditions that support governance and management to have a shared vision and strategic direction.
A culture of continuous quality improvement is focused on ensuring positive and equitable outcomes for learners.
Kids at Play Childcare Centre will include the following action in its Quality Improvement Planning. The service identified this priority through its internal evaluation:
To plan and implement a curriculum that is responsive to the particular requirements of children aged between two and three years of age.
Before the review, the staff and management of Kids at Play 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:
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.
Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki
16 September 2022
|
Early Childhood Service Name |
Kids at Play Childcare Centre |
|
Profile Number |
20187 |
|
Location |
Mt Eden, Auckland |
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
|
Number licensed for |
42 children, including up to 12 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
100% |
|
Service roll |
41 |
|
Review team on site |
June 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
16 September 2022 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, November 2018 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Kids at Play Childcare Centre is a long established early childhood service located in Mt Eden, Auckland. It operates as a not-for-profit incorporated society. The management committee, made up from elected parents and the centre manager, is the governing body for the centre. The centre is licensed to provide all-day education and care for 42 children, including up to 12 under two years of age.
Seven qualified teachers and additional support staff work with age related groups of children. Infants and toddlers have their own large indoor and outdoor play areas and older children have several indoor and outdoor learning spaces. Several new teachers have been appointed in the last three years.
The centre's philosophy focuses on the importance of the family and whānau involvement in children's learning. It includes a strong commitment to fostering an interactive, fun environment where children have positive learning experiences.
The 2015 ERO review identified many positive findings that continue to be present. The report recommended strengthening learning partnerships with parents, planning strategically towards the centre's vision and philosophy, and linking planning and assessment to better reflect current best practice in early education. Teachers have made positive progress in each of these areas for development.
Children are valued and respected learners. Teachers place high importance on play as a foundation for learning. Children learn at their own pace in the centre's large, calm and inclusive learning environments. Older children are involved in complex and sustained play. They engage in meaningful conversations with each other and with adults. Children trust teachers to be responsive and to encourage them in their learning.
Children make full use of the learning environment. The spacious outside play area is attractively set out and offers a good range of age-appropriate and interesting challenges. This environment helps children to develop their physical skills and social competencies. The indoor areas have some inviting spaces and displays that reflect the character of the centre. Early literacy and mathematics are integral parts of the programme. Teachers celebrate important cultural events with families and the environment shows some influence of children's culture.
Teachers are growing their bicultural practices and understanding of te ao Māori and documenting these more explicitly. They are integrating more te reo Māori into the programme, especially during mat time. Leaders are well placed to continue to grow the use and place of te reo Māori me ōna tikanga into everyday common use.
Infants and toddlers are well cared for and nurtured. They form warm bonds with their prime caregiver and other teachers. They experience a range of opportunities that support their development and learning. Although the environment contains many good resources, teachers should increase the access infants and toddlers have to heuristic, natural, open-ended resources.
Teachers are inclusive of all children and their whānau. They listen to children respectfully. Teachers build positive partnerships with parents. They focus on developing quality teaching practices to support children's ongoing learning, wellbeing and development.
Well-considered planning and assessment practices guide relevant programmes for children. Planning approaches are collaborative and flexible, allowing teachers to respond to children's interests and to cater for diverse learning needs. Leaders intend to focus more on individual planning to support older children to develop their critical thinking skills.
Children's learning stories contain good records of their participation in the programme. They are available on-line to parents and whānau and are linked to Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. More parents are using the on-line portal to share children's learning at home with teachers.
The centre manager and lead teachers provide effective leadership. Annual appraisal supports teachers and leaders to reflect on the quality of teaching practice against centre strategic goals and the professional teaching standards. These appraisals inform professional development decisions aligned to teachers' specific interests and promote valued outcomes for children.
The vision of the society management committee provides a clear direction for the centre. Extensive governance policies and practices outline operations and promote adherence to regulations. The committee has formalised self-review practices against strategic planning and is strengthening internal evaluation.
Key next steps for centre development include:
reviewing and evaluating the centre philosophy in line with Te Whāriki and other teaching philosophies currently being implemented
prioritising teacher development and programme implementation within the centre's strategic plan
developing the centre's self-review into more robust internal evaluation processes.
Before the review, the staff and management of Kids at Play 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 Kids at Play Childcare Centre will be in three years.
Violet Tu’uga Stevenson
Director Review and Improvement Services
Te Tai Raki - Northern Region
8 November 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 |
Mt Eden, Auckland |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
20187 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
42 children, including up to 12 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
53 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Girls 30 Boys 23 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori |
2 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
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 |
September 2018 |
||
|
Date of this report |
8 November 2018 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s)
|
Education Review |
April 2015 |
|
|
Education Review |
February 2012 |
||
|
Education Review |
February 2009 |
||
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 |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Kids at Play Childcare Centre is located in the inner city suburb of Mt Eden, Auckland. The service has served its community since 1987, and operates as a not for profit incorporated society. The management committee, made up from elected parents and the centre manager, is the governing body for the centre.
The committee appoints a centre manager who has responsibility for professional leadership and for the daily operations of the service. The centre provides education and care for 42 children up to the age of five years, including 12 under the age of two. Children are organised into two specific groups and areas, those under two years and those over two years old.
The centre has a history of positive ERO reports. The 2012 report recommended the centre focus on extending children’s learning through a review of the environment and the opportunities it offered children. A further suggestion for teaching staff was to engage cognitively with children to lift the level of complexity in their play. Progress has been made in these areas and they continue to be a focus for centre development.
Families and children are warmly welcomed into the centre. Children settle quickly, demonstrate a sense of belonging and engage confidently with adults and each other. Teachers respond sensitively to children’s care routines and specific ongoing needs and preferences.
Staff offer a programme based on emerging topic activities, developed from teachers’ observations of children at play. There are often three or four different emerging topics to engage children simultaneously in the centre’s learning environment. This provides a variety of choice and some degree of challenge. Teachers now need to extend and strengthen children’s individual learning in these contexts in line with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.
Assessment portfolios show that teachers write informative learning stories centred on children’s learning experiences and on their progress over time. The children’s portfolios are of good quality in this respect. Teachers’ planning would benefit from better use of the portfolio information about children’s interests, strengths and abilities, to feed into the learning programme.
Older children are regularly grouped together, particularly in the afternoons, to follow a transition to school programme. Centre leaders could consider professional development for staff to explore the most effective and current practice for supporting the learning of this age group.
Since ERO’s review in 2012 the centre has focused professional development on the understanding of schema. This knowledge has enabled teachers to deepen children's learning experiences. The centre manager and teachers are accessing other current and relevant sources of professional learning to ensure a high quality curriculum and programme are provided for children.
Some spontaneous self review has been effectively conducted by the centre manager and teachers to improve centre policies and procedures. There now needs to be a focus on developing strategic planning and the use of self review to bring about continuous improvement to learning outcomes for children.
ERO endorses the centre leaders’ self-identified next steps to:
ERO also recommends that centre leaders and teachers:
Before the review, the staff and management of Kids at Play 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.
The next ERO review of Kids at Play Childcare Centre will be in three years.
Dale Bailey
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern
9 April 2015
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 |
Mt Eden, Auckland |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
20187 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
42 children, including up to 12 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
58 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Girls 30 Boys 28 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori Pākehā Chinese Indian Samoan French other Pacific other |
2 41 3 3 3 2 2 2 |
|
|
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 |
1:6 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
|
Review team on site |
January 2015 |
||
|
Date of this report |
9 April 2015 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review |
February 2012 |
|
|
Education Review |
February 2009 |
||
|
Education Review |
May 2006 |
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.