452 Early's Road, Cust
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 (PDF 3.01MB) are the basis for making judgements about the effectiveness of the service in achieving equity and excellence for all learners. The Akarangi Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric (PDF 91.30KB) derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this service’s performance in promoting equity and excellence.
ERO’s judgements for Cust Preschool are as follows:
Outcome Indicators |
ERO’s judgement |
What the service knows about outcomes for learners |
Whakaū Embedding |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
ERO’s judgement |
|
He Whāriki Motuhake The learner and their learning |
Whakawhanake Sustaining |
|
Whakangungu Ngaio Collaborative professional learning builds knowledge and capability |
Whakawhanake Sustaining |
|
Ngā Aronga Whai Hua Evaluation for improvement |
Whakaū Embedding |
|
Kaihautū Leaders foster collaboration and improvement |
Whakawhanake Sustaining |
|
Te Whakaruruhau Stewardship through effective governance and management |
Whakaū Embedding |
Cust Preschool is a locally owned and operated service located in the North Canterbury township of Cust. The nursery area opened in 2018. There are separate learning spaces for under two-year-olds and older children. The service has an established group of qualified kaiako.
Kaiako provide real-life experiences that support tamariki to build confidence and independence as they increasingly take responsibility for tasks in the daily curriculum. Their emotional and social wellbeing is a primary consideration in this service. Through a play-based child focused philosophy, tamariki potential is celebrated and taking responsibility for learning encouraged.
Infants and toddlers experience unhurried routines and learning opportunities. Kaiako are flexible in meeting their needs. All tamariki are respected and celebrated for their unique capabilities and dispositions and their learning is extended through their play interests.
Tamariki can access a wide range of resources, presented in well-designed indoor and outdoor learning spaces. Regular routines provide a sense of predictability of what will happen next. Te reo Māori is used and aspects of tikanga Māori practiced in the learning environments. Kaiako continue to build confidence and competence to integrate te ao Māori into the daily curriculum.
Kaiako are responsive to learners and acknowledge the significance of the culture, language, and identity tamariki, their parents and whānau bring to the service’s curriculum. Learning experiences are linked to the outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, and are evident in group planning. Tamariki progression in their learning over time in relation to the identified learning priorities, is not clear.
Professional inquiry goals of kaiako are linked to the service’s collective quality improvement focus areas. This shared vision for improvement promotes a strong learning community. The service does not yet have evidence about how the collective impact of individual inquiries drive improvement.
Leaders have high expectations of kaiako. Strong relational trust supports a culture of continuous improvement. Self-review and teacher inquiry is used well to reflect on practice and inform improvements. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of practice is not well embedded.
Cust Preschool will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning. These are to:
continue to develop their capacity and capability for internal evaluation to identify how well these practices improve outcomes for children. These findings should then be used to determine the services strategic priorities
develop further understanding of the impact of the service’s bicultural curriculum on outcomes for tamariki.
Before the review, the staff and management of Cust Preschool 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.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
27 May 2022
| Early Childhood Service Name | Cust Preschool |
| Profile Number | 46745 |
| Location | Cust |
| Service type | Education and care service |
|
Number licensed for |
40 children, including up to 12 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
100% |
|
Service roll |
60 |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori 3, NZ European/Pākehā 48, Other ethnic groups 9 |
|
Review team on site |
October 2021 |
|
Date of this report |
27 May 2022 |
| Most recent ERO report(s) | Education Review, November 2017 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Cust Preschool is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Cust preschool is a new owner-operated centre licensed for 40 children. The centre provides full day sessions for a maximum of 25 children over two years. The purpose-built centre is well designed to take advantage of natural light and indoor-outdoor flow. The atmosphere is calm, welcoming and part of the small rural community.
Most of the staff are qualified teachers.
The centre's vision and philosophy are clearly evident and embedded in the centre's documentation, processes and practices.
This centre's curriculum is effectively designed and enacted to promote positive learning outcomes for all children. A strong alignment is evident between the curriculum and the centre's vision and values, and between the emergent and planned curriculum.
Teachers clearly understand children as unique learners in the context of whānau and the wider community. They encourage children to be confident and competent learners with a strong sense of self. Teachers foster these attributes by:
Teachers use assessment practices intelligently to enhance children's sense of themselves as successful learners. They do this by:
Leaders and teachers use strategies and resources that effectively support children to become knowledgeable about, and confident in, Aotearoa's dual cultural heritage. This is evident in the way that teachers value, respect, and encourage Māori language, culture and identity. The unique place of Māori culture and history is meaningfully acknowledged.
Leaders promote a shared understanding of the centre's philosophy, vision and goals. There is effective collaboration across the centre. Staff are valued and their well-being cared for. They are regularly involved in decision making. 'Heart' meetings provide a forum for staff to share thoughts and ideas about children.
The centre has a well-documented and comprehensive transition-to-school process. There is a clear system for sharing information with the school and parents around transition. Children's ideas and feedback after school visits are captured and used to inform teacher and parent decisions that support a smooth transition to school.
Leaders and teachers have identified that feedback and information from parents should be purposely gathered, analysed and used for decision making.
The centre's planning process could be refined so that long term strategic goals are broken into specific smaller and actionable goals as part of the centre's annual plan. This will make it easier to identify a manageable focus for internal evaluation purposes.
The appraisal system needs to be strengthened to ensure that teachers are appraised in relation to all of the Education Council criteria every 12 months. Feedback to teachers in relation to the Education Council criteria for registration needs to be clearly evident in teacher's appraisal portfolios.
Before the review, the staff and management of Cust Preschool 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 Cust Preschool will be in three years.
Jane Lee
Deputy Chief Review Officer (Acting)
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
21 November 2017
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 |
Cust |
||
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46745 |
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Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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|
Number licensed for |
40 children over 2 years |
||
|
Service roll |
53 |
||
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Gender composition |
Boys 27: Girls 26 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori |
5 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80%+ Based on funding rates |
80% + |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Over 2 |
1:8 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Review team on site |
October 2017 |
||
|
Date of this report |
21 November 2017 |
||
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
No previous ERO reports |
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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.