Little Rosebuds Early Learning Centre

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 Little Rosebuds Early Learning Centre are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Little Rosebuds Early Learning Centre, formerly known as Mini Miracles Educare, is privately owned. There have been recent significant staff changes. A new Centre Manager guides daily operation and provides leadership to a team of five teachers. The service caters for children aged birth to school age, across two aged-based areas.

3 Summary of findings

Children and their families benefit from positive relationships with teachers and leaders as:

• infants and toddlers experience calm, responsive teaching

• teachers know children and their families well

• parents have some opportunities to contribute to their children’s learning

• children with additional learning needs are well supported.

Children have some opportunities to lead their own learning. Their freedom of movement is maintained, and oral language development promoted. Assessments are beginning to reflect children’s interests and ways of learning. Older children experience a mostly play-based curriculum. Their creativity and emergent literacy and numeracy learning are not yet consistently extended and enhanced.

Responsiveness to children’s cultural identities is at an early stage across the curriculum. Leaders have identified the need to grow teachers’ cultural knowledge. Teachers are beginning to include aspects of Māori and Indian cultures, with some cultural celebrations observed. Tamariki Māori hear some te reo and children’s pepeha are collected. The culture of Pacific children is yet to be reflected in the curriculum.

The service is beginning to engage in inquiry and knowledge building to support ongoing improvements. The philosophy is under review to generate shared priorities for children’s learning with whānau. Teachers are beginning to consider the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, in relation to children’s learning. An internal evaluation framework is being established, linked to strategic planning and teachers’ professional learning. Governance has not yet developed shared systems to evaluate the impact of changes on outcomes for children.

4 Improvement actions

Little Rosebuds Early Learning Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• continue to increase the range of learning opportunities available to extend the complexity of children’s play, appropriate to their age and stage

• establish culturally responsive practises throughout the centre curriculum, in partnership with all whānau, to reflect and affirm the culture, language and identity of children attending

• negotiate localised priorities for learning that reflect the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, and use these to inform planning, assessment and evaluation

• governance, in partnership with leadership, to develop shared systems to systematically monitor and evaluate the ongoing impact of improvement actions against outcomes for children.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Little Rosebuds Early Learning 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.

6 Actions for Compliance

Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliances:

• consideration of daily hazard checking to include medicines, hazards present in kitchen or laundry facilities, vandalism, foreign materials, poisonous plants, and bodies of water (HS12)

• a system for safety checking existing staff (GMA7A).

Phil Cowie
Director Review and Improvement Services
Central Region | Te Tai Pūtahi Nui
23 May 2022 

7 About the Early Childhood Service