Church Street Educare

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 Church Street Educare are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Church Street Educare is situated in a culturally diverse community. It caters for children in three
age-appropriate rooms. The centre supervisor oversees daily operations and the programme provided for the children. The owners support her with administration related tasks and lead the team of seven qualified teachers and five unqualified staff. A high number of children and families from Pacific ethnicities attend the service.

3 Summary of findings

Children learn through a responsive curriculum that is based on Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Teachers and leaders are effectively supporting children’s wellbeing, sense of belonging and equitable access to education and care. This commitment is reflected in the centre’s philosophy and in teaching practice.

Teachers who work with infants and toddlers maintain a calm pace that gives younger children space and time to lead their own learning. Teachers are responsive to children’s verbal and non-verbal cues and signals.

Useful assessment for learning practices support teachers to capture children’s learning dispositions, interests and strengths. Teachers include parent and whānau aspirations in the design of the curriculum. As a result, meaningful and intentional teaching practices are supporting positive outcomes for children’s learning.

Cultural events are celebrated together with children and parents. Teachers include some waiata, te reo and tikanga Māori into the daily routines and experiences. Service leaders are working on making children’s cultures more visible in the curriculum.

Leaders have a focus on continual improvement, and they show commitment to the service’s philosophy, vision, and goals. They plan to further develop bicultural practice, and teaching practice that contributes to positive outcomes for all learners. Leaders and teachers ensure that their practices allow all children to access equitable learning opportunities and enjoy positive outcomes.

Self-review for improvement is well understood, implemented and embedded. Teachers are working on establishing their evaluation capability. This purposeful goal is likely to support them to further achieve the service’s vision, values, strategic direction, goals, and priorities for valued learning.

4 Improvement actions

Church Street Educare will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Increase the range of opportunities children and their families have, to see, hear and feel aspects of their culture reflected across the curriculum.

• Continue to grow teacher capability to do and use internal evaluation to identify what is and is not working, and for whom, and to determine how well they are achieving the service’s valued learning outcomes for all children.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Church Street Educare 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.

6 Actions for Compliance

During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliance:

• If children travel in a motor vehicle while in the care of the service, the written permission of a parent of the child is obtained before the travel begins (HS18).

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

26 July 2022 

7 About the Early Childhood Service