Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited

Education institution number:
47205
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
93
Telephone:
Address:

325 Dunns Crossing Road RD8, Christchurch

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Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited

ERO’s Akanuku | Assurance Review reports provide information about whether a service meets and maintains regulatory standards. Further information about Akanuku | Assurance Reviews is included at the end of this report.

ERO’s Judgement

Regulatory standards

ERO’s judgement

Curriculum

Meeting

Premises and facilities

Meeting

Health and safety

Meeting

Governance, management and administration

Meeting

Since the onsite visit the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed non-compliances and is now taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.

Background

Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited is a privately owned early childhood education service. It is one of eleven nationally operated services by the same owner. The centre manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the service. Families from a diverse learning community attend. Children from birth to school age play and learn in three separate learning areas.

Summary of Review Findings

The curriculum encourages children to be confident in their own culture and develop respect and understanding of other cultures. Teachers use te reo Māori in the learning programme. Parents have the opportunity to be involved in and contribute to the service through policy reviews, centre celebrations, and in their child’s learning. Resourcing is of sufficient quantity and variety appropriate to the learning and ability of the children attending the service. There are systems and processes in place to support the health, safety, and wellbeing of children. An annual plan and philosophy guide the operation of the service.

Key Next Steps

Next steps include:

  • developing learning priorities for the service in consultation with parents, whānau and the wider local community.

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

  • non-porous covers for stretchers have been purchased and are used on stretchers by sleeping children.

Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Centres 2008, PF30.            

Next ERO Review

The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

21 December 2021 

Information About the Service

Early Childhood Service Name Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited
Profile Number 47205
Location Rolleston

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

100 children, including up to 20 aged under 2.

Percentage of qualified teachers

80%+

Service roll

109

Ethnic composition

Māori 1, NZ European/Pākehā 66, Pacific 4 Indian 14, Other ethnicities 24.

Review team on site

November 2021

Date of this report

21 December 2021

Most recent ERO report(s)

 Education Review, April 2019; 

General Information about Assurance Reviews

All services are licensed under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008. The legal requirements for early childhood services also include the Licensing Criteria for Education and Care Services 2008.

Services must meet the standards in the regulations and the requirements of the licensing criteria to gain and maintain a licence to operate.

ERO undertakes an Akanuku | Assurance Review process in any centre-based service:

  • having its first ERO review – including if it is part of a governing organisation
  • previously identified as ‘not well placed’ or ‘requiring further development’
  • that has moved from a provisional to a full licence
  • that have been re-licenced due to a change of ownership
  • where an Akanuku | Assurance Review process is determined to be appropriate.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

All early childhood services are required to promote children’s health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements. Before the review, the staff and management of a service 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.

As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO assesses whether the regulated standards are being met. In particular, ERO looks at a 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 certification; ratios)
  • evacuation procedures and practices for fire and earthquake.

As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO also gathers and records evidence through:

  • discussions with those involved in the service
  • consideration of relevant documentation, including the implementation of health and safety systems
  • observations of the environment/premises, curriculum implementation and teaching practice.

Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited - 04/04/2019

1 Evaluation of Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited

How well placed is Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.

ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.

Background

Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited is a privately owned early childhood care and education service that opened in 2016. The service is part of a national umbrella organisation. It caters for children from birth-to-school age from a diverse learning community. This is the first ERO report for this service.

A cluster manager and a centre manager have worked together to establish the service and lead the day to day operation of the service. There were some significant changes to the teaching teams in 2018. Most staff are registered early childhood teachers. The purpose built property provides separate open-learning areas for children under two-years-old and for children over two-years-old. There are many opportunities for siblings and mixed aged groups of children to play with one another.

The philosophy for the service focuses on fostering supportive, respectful and responsive relationships. It states children are valued as individuals and supported to develop a positive sense of belonging and respect. It outlines a belief that children learn best through play and education at their own pace and when they are happy and having fun.

The Review Findings

Children benefit from long periods of uninterrupted time to explore the spacious, well organised learning areas that offers a broad range of learning experiences. This includes giving emphasis to oral language development, creativity, social competencies and physical challenges. Literacy, mathematics and bicultural perspectives are integrated in ways that are meaningful to children.

Infants and toddlers have easy access to an environment that is well resourced and encourages exploration. There are comfortable, safe places that cater for children who are not yet mobile and for those who are crawling and learning to walk.

Leaders have a strong commitment to promoting teaching and learning practices that contribute to positive outcomes for children. They are building a reflective team culture, and understanding of inquiry and evaluative practice that is focused improving outcomes for children.

All teachers are actively involved in targeted external and internal professional learning and development (PLD). Ongoing support and mentoring is well-paced and personalised to meet the needs of individual teachers and teams to sustain and extend knowledge and skills. This includes the positive impact of recent PLD on Te Whāriki 2017 and on the planning for the learning that matters here.

At the time of this review centre leaders and managers acknowledged that they had sought guidance and support from the Ministry of Education to resolve some staffing issues. Through a systematic internal evaluation process they have now strengthened policies and practices to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children and staff, and have resolved the issues.

Leaders are implementing and are embedding effective systems and processes to support the new teaching teams and the operation of the service. These systems and processes are aligned to the national and local strategic priorities, centre inquiry and appraisal. Robust performance management processes and practices are building leadership capacity and teacher capability.

Blossoms Educare Rolleston is well-led and managed by a collaborative, capable leadership team. They are committed to establishing a shared philosophy that gives emphasis to fostering supportive, respectful relationships with children and families.

Key Next Steps

The service managers and ERO agree that the key next steps are to:

  • give greater prominence to te ao Māori to strengthen the provision of a bicultural curriculum for all children and opportunities for Māori to succeed as Māori

  • strengthen assessment processes and consistency of practice

  • refine and embed recently developed group planning and evaluation processes

  • continue to develop the depth of understanding of internal evaluation across the teaching teams.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Blossoms Educare Rolleston Limited 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.

Alan Wynyard

Director Review and Improvement Services

Southern Region

4 April 2019

The Purpose of ERO Reports

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.

2 Information about the Early Childhood Service

Location

Christchurch

Ministry of Education profile number

47205

Licence type

Education & Care Service

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

130 children, including up to 20 aged under 2

Service roll

108

Gender composition

Boys 64 ; Girls 44

Ethnic composition

Māori
Pākehā
Other ethnicities

8
79
21

Percentage of qualified teachers

0-49% 50-79% 80%+

Based on funding rates

80% +

Reported ratios of staff to children

Under 2

1:4

Better than minimum requirements

Over 2

1:8

Better than minimum requirements

Review team on site

December 2018

Date of this report

4 April 2019

Most recent ERO report

No previous ERO reports

3 General Information about Early Childhood Reviews

ERO’s Evaluation Framework

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:

Pou Whakahaere – how the service determines its vision, philosophy and direction to ensure positive outcomes for children

Pou Ārahi – how leadership is enacted to enhance positive outcomes for children

Mātauranga – whose knowledge is valued and how the curriculum is designed to achieve positive outcomes for children

Tikanga whakaako – how approaches to teaching and learning respond to diversity and support positive outcomes for children.

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.

ERO’s Overall Judgement

The overall judgement that ERO makes will depend on how well the service promotes positive learning outcomes for children. The categories are:

  • Very well placed

  • Well placed

  • Requires further development

  • Not well placed

ERO has developed criteria for each category. These are available on ERO’s website.

Review Coverage

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.