Wakari Hospital 371 Taieri Road, Wakari, Dunedin
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 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 Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whakatō Emerging |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
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Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whāngai Establishing Whāngai Establishing |
Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre is one of two services providing education and care for children of hospital employees in a mixed-aged learning environment. The centre manager provides oversight of day-to-day management. The service has a small number of Māori children, and those of Indian heritage. There has been little progress towards addressing the key next steps identified in the 2018 ERO report.
Children are well supported to be engaged, confident, and curious. Teachers intentionally prepare the learning environment and deliberately use strategies to foster children’s exploration and developing social competence. There are some opportunities throughout the day for children to hear and use waiata and te reo Māori. This continues to be an area of focus for the teaching team.
Teachers provide a variety of open-ended resources for infants to explore and are attuned to their verbal and non-verbal cues. These children experience calm, respectful interactions and unhurried care routines. Children who are under two years of age can choose when they would like to be with the wider group or have some quieter time with their own age group.
Assessment information highlights children’s participation in a play-based curriculum. Children’s learning and progress in relation to the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, is not yet visible in assessment documentation. Resources which reflect te ao Māori are visible and available to children. However, there is little evidence of children’s languages, cultures, and identities in their assessment documentation.
Internal evaluation is well lead. The gathering and collaborative sense making is robust and informs ongoing improvements to practice. Leaders are yet to develop the teaching team’s collective capability in, and shared understanding of using internal evaluation for improvement and how it contributes to improved outcomes for learners.
Governance and management are improvement focused. They have regular meetings on management and administrative matters. Leaders share informative reports with governance focused on the curriculum and the day-to-day running of the service. Human resource systems and practices require strengthening to ensure compliance with the regulatory framework.
Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning. These are:
show children’s progression of learning in relation to the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, in individual assessment documents
seek and include parent, whānau, and iwi aspirations for children’s learning that better responds to their languages, cultures, and identities
develop the teaching team’s collective capability in, and shared understanding of using internal evaluation for improvement
for governance and management to evaluate systems, processes, and practices to ensure compliance with all regulatory standards.
Before the review, the staff and management of Wakari Hospital Early Childhood 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.
Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliance:
all children’s workers must be safety checked every three years, and outcomes of the risk assessment are recorded.
Licensing criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Services 2008, GMA7a.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
4 October 2022
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Early Childhood Service Name |
Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre |
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Profile Number |
47192 |
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Location |
Dunedin |
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Service type |
Education and care service |
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Number licensed for |
47 children, including up to 16 aged under 2 |
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Percentage of qualified teachers |
100% |
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Service roll |
74 |
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Review team on site |
July 2022 |
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Date of this report |
4 October 2022 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, December 2018 |
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Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre (Wakari Hospital ECC) is one of two early learning services under the Dunedin Hospital Board (DHB) umbrella. This centre provides early education and care for infants and children up to school age in a mixed age setting, for hospital staff only.
Both centres are governed by a committee made up of parents who use the services. A centre director manages both sites with the support of head teachers who have responsibility for the day-to-day programme.
The centre philosophy at Wakari Hospital ECC includes the belief that positive, respectful relationships are key to children's learning and that with this, children grow to be curious, capable learners who are confident to engage in rich play and meaningful learning.
The centre opened in 2017 and this is its first ERO review.
Children at the centre play and learn with confidence. The warm caring relationships between teachers, the children and their families support the children's sense of wellbeing and belonging. Teachers encourage children to be independent and make their own decisions about what they want to do and learn. Teachers are respectful of, and responsive to, children's choices and preferences. The well-established routines and teachers' clear expectations for behaviour provide the security children need to feel safe in this home-like learning environment.
The centre philosophy is effective in supporting the head teacher's expectations for practice. The teachers work together to decide on how they will encourage and promote children’s learning, which supports consistent teaching practice. Teachers develop useful plans to guide their teaching when working to promote the learning needs of individual children. Plans include parents’ perspectives. Teachers are skilled at recognising children’s learning which is documented in children's profile books.
Teachers use the environment and centre resources as the third teacher. The centre is well organised and uncluttered with a wide range of purposeful equipment and resources.
In the mixed-age setting children have the opportunity to learn from one another. The concept of tuakana-teina is strongly evident: older children support and care for the younger ones. Strong friendships are developing between children. Children with particular needs are effectively supported by teachers and external agencies, who collaborate with parents to achieve the goals for their learning.
Teachers are very responsive to children's verbal and non-verbal cues. They promote children's oral language development through respectful, caring, quality interactions. All children are well cared for by a primary caregiver (Kumanu kaiako). Teachers follow the routines set at home so that there is continuity of care between centre and home.
Leaders acknowledge the need to take a planned approach to ensuring bicultural knowledge and practice continue to grow and developments are sustained. Teachers include aspects of Māori culture within the programme. Te reo Māori, karakia and waiata are used to help build children's familiarity with New Zealand's bicultural heritage.
Leaders are very responsive to the needs of children and their families. They have successfully established a well organised education and care service focused on positive outcomes for children. They use a range of communication systems to keep families informed. Regular meetings and useful reports help keep staff and the governing committee well informed about developments which assists decision making.
Leaders have high expectations for children’s learning and for teaching practice, with clear roles and responsibilities in place. Teachers have the opportunity for professional development to build practice and develop their leadership skills. A useful appraisal process is in place which is focused on upskilling teachers to improve outcomes for children. Teachers are accountable and expected to take responsibility for their professional growth.
The service has made a good start with internal evaluation practices. Spontaneous reviews are helping establish a solid base for centre practices. There is potential now to move from development mode to evaluation of the quality of centre practice. A comprehensive schedule for planned reviews would be helpful in ensuring the key priorities for children's learning are regularly reviewed. Regular evaluation of practices that impact most on children will help leaders and teachers better understand what is working well or what needs to be improved.
It may be useful and timely for the service to review its philosophy. In particular, to identify more specifically how key priorities for children’s learning will be supported through teaching and the environment. This will make it easier to evaluate the impact the service is having on promoting and extending children's learning. Strategic development, programme planning and internal evaluation can then be aligned with the identified key priorities.
ERO, the centre leaders and teachers agree that the centre’s next steps include:
Before the review, the staff and management of Wakari Hospital Early Childhood 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:
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 Wakari Hospital Early Childhood Centre will be in three years.
Alan Wynyard
Director Review & Improvement Services Southern
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
12 December 2018
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.
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Location |
Dunedin |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
47192 |
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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 |
47 children, including up to 14 aged under 2 |
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|
Service roll |
72 |
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Gender composition |
Boys: 39 Girls: 33 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
1 |
|
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Percentage of qualified teachers |
80% + |
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Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:5 |
Meets minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
1:5 |
Better than minimum requirements |
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Review team on site |
October 2018 |
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Date of this report |
12 December 2018 |
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Most recent ERO reports |
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.