The Vines Early Learning

The Vines Early Learning - 22 May 2024

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 ​The Vines Early Learning​ are as follows: 

2 Context of the Service 

The Vines Early Learning is privately owned and operated. The service owner is involved in daily operations and supports a new centre manager. Together they lead a team of ten qualified teachers and thirteen unqualified staff. Children are from ethnically diverse backgrounds with small numbers of Māori or Pacific heritages. This is the first ERO evaluation under the current ownership.  

3 Summary of findings 

Children experience a positive curriculum that is play-based and supported by caring and nurturing relationships with teachers. Teacher practices demonstrate that care is understood to be an integral part of children’s learning and development. As a result, children demonstrate a sense of security and belonging. 

Leaders recognise the need to increase focus on the development of children’s education through scaffolded interactions, intentional planning, and purposeful evaluation. A new system for planning and assessment of the curriculum has been developed. Teachers are in the early stages of implementing this and valued learning in relation to the outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, are not yet visible. 

Leaders and teachers work with external agencies to identify and remove barriers to children’s full participation in learning. However, the intentionally collated voice of the community is not well utilised to design a curriculum that responds to individual needs. 

New systems for internal evaluation and professional growth are currently being trialled. The focus of these has been on accountability and routines for teachers. The trial leaders aim to build the collective capacity of the teaching team to use evaluation for improvement. Consideration should also be given to how well these systems are addressing what matters most for children.  

Those responsible for governance and management allocate resources in ways that align to their vision and philosophy. The new owners are yet to develop a strategic plan to identify what their priorities for learning are and create cohesive systems to progress these.  

4 Improvement actions 

​​The Vines Early Learning​ will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning: 

• Implement new planning and assessment processes to evidence how individual and groups of children’s learning is progressing against the valued outcomes. 
• Build on the capability and collective capacity within the team to do and use evaluation for both accountability and improvement functions. 
• Develop strategic priorities to align the services systems and create a shared direction for their learning community. 

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements 

Before the review, the staff and management of ​The Vines Early Learning​ 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) 

​​22 May 2024​   

6 About the Early Childhood Service