Kids at Play Timaru

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 Kids at Play Timaru are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Kids at Play Timaru is one of three owner-operated early childhood services. Staffing comprises a mix of qualified teachers and teachers in training. Children aged two years and over learn and play within a mixed-aged setting.  The roll is culturally diverse. Nearly two thirds of children who attend are either of Māori or of Pacific heritages, with a small number from other ethnicities.  Leaders and teachers continue to make progress in strengthening the bicultural curriculum and intentional teaching practices as identified in the 2021 ERO review report.

3 Summary of findings

Teachers view children as capable and competent learners. They encourage them to take responsibility for themselves, the environment and each other. Teachers use a range of effective strategies to help children develop social competence and oral language skills. The learning priorities of social and emotional competence, numeracy, and literacy are evident within the curriculum.  

Children experience a language rich environment. Their home languages are evident within the curriculum. Teachers are increasingly integrating tikanga Māori and te reo Māori into daily teaching practice and provide genuine opportunities for children to hear and speak the language. Leaders and teachers have begun to undertake work to extend the bicultural curriculum.

Children with additional learning needs are well supported. Teachers find ways to enable their full participation in the curriculum. Teachers work collaboratively with local schools and whānau to support successful transitions. Useful information relevant to the child’s learning and wellbeing is shared to support continuity of learning.  

Teachers know children and their families well. They strongly focus on child and whānau wellbeing. Useful assessment for learning processes enables teachers to plan, assess and evaluate valued learning. Teachers actively promote parents' engagement in their child's learning. Clearer documentation is required to show how well-planned teaching strategies have supported and extended children’s learning.

Leaders are improvement focused. Children’s learning and wellbeing are the primary considerations in decision making and relevant initiatives are implemented to enable children and their whānau to participate. Relevant professional learning and development is aligned to service priorities. Collaborative internal evaluation guides practice and informs decision making.  When undertaking internal evaluation further work is required to at the monitoring and evaluation phase to know how well different groups of learners are progressing within the curriculum.

4 Improvement actions

Kids at Play Timaru will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• make explicit in children’s learning assessment documentation intentional teaching strategies that show the effectiveness and impact on outcomes for learners

• further develop the local bicultural curriculum by exploring and integrating local cultural narratives

• when undertaking internal evaluation, better scrutinise the evaluation findings to know what is working well or not and for which groups of learners within the curriculum and in relation to the service’s priorities for learning.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of 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)

15 June 2023 

6 About the Early Childhood Service