Busy Beez Childcare Centre

Education institution number:
60381
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
56
Telephone:
Address:

626 Fergusson Drive, Upper Hutt CBD, Upper Hutt

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Busy Beez Childcare 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 Busy Beez Childcare Centre are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

(What the service knows about outcomes for learners)

Whāngai Establishing

Ngā Akatoro Domains

 

Learning Conditions
Organisational Conditions

Whāngai Establishing

Whāngai Establishing

2 Context of the Service

Busy Beez Childcare Centre is one of eleven early childhood services under common private ownership. Significant staff changes, including the appointment of an area manager and head teacher, have occurred. The roll is culturally diverse. A third of children are Māori. A number of children are from Pacific and Indian heritages. Some progress is evident in relation to the previous report’s key next steps.

3 Summary of findings

Children experience a play-based curriculum that enables them to have choices about their participation and aspects of their learning. Teachers provide a good range of open-ended learning opportunities linked to science, numeracy and creativity. Children are motivated by these activities and engage in them for sustained periods. Infants and toddlers experience a calm learning environment that is well set up to meet their needs.

Leaders and teachers are at an early stage of developing a curriculum that is culturally responsive and have yet to collaborate with parents and whānau to identify a localised approach. The concept of success for Māori and Pacific children within their own cultural context is not yet well understood.

Leaders have recently implemented a more meaningful approach to assessment. The learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, are now used as the basis for informing planning for learning. Teaching strategies are implemented to support individual children’s progress. Evaluation is well-considered to identify children’s progress and next steps. There is more work to do to support parent partnership in planning for their child’s learning.

Governance and management systems are well established. A strategic plan provides direction for development and a well-defined leadership structure supports practice and operation. Suitable frameworks are used to build teachers’ professional growth and capability to use internal evaluation. The team’s capacity to undertake internal evaluation requires development. The appraisal cycle is a supportive process. It is timely for managers and leaders to build their capability to engage more effectively in critique of professional practice to support teachers ongoing improvement.

4 Improvement actions

Busy Beez Childcare Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning. Continue to:

  • seek parent and whānau aspirations and use these to inform planning for children’s learning

  • collaborate with parents and whānau to develop, implement and meaningfully engage children in a culturally responsive, localised curriculum

  • build managers and leaders capability to engage more effectively in critique of professional practice to support teachers ongoing improvement

  • build teachers’ understanding and use of internal evaluation to support decision making and determine the impact of actions on outcomes for children. 

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Busy Beez Childcare Centre 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.

6 Actions for Compliance

During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliance:

  • cots that could fall or topple and cause serious injury or damage are secured.

[Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Services, 2008, HS6].  

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

  • ensure that the risk assessment element in the staff safety checking process is consistently completed in accordance with the Children Act 2014.

[Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Services, 2008, GMA7a].  

Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Acting, Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

15 February 2023

7 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name

Busy Beez Childcare Centre

Profile Number

60381

Location

Upper Hutt

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

50 children, including up to 20 aged under 2

Percentage of qualified teachers

80-99%

Service roll

64

Review team on site

October 2022

Date of this report

15 February 2023

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, November 2019; Education Review, September 2016.

Busy Beez Childcare Centre - 25/11/2019

1 Evaluation of Busy Beez Childcare Centre

How well placed is Busy Beez Childcare Centre to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

Busy Beez Childcare Centre is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.

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

Background

Busy Beez Childcare Centre is a privately owned service located in Upper Hutt. It is licensed to provide all-day education and care for 50 children, including 20 under two years. Families represent a number of diverse cultures.

The indoor and outdoor environments are divided into two age groups. Infants and toddlers have designated learning areas, staff and resources, adjoined to the older children’s learning spaces.

The service provider owns eight centres in the greater Wellington region. Most policies are shared. A regional manager is employed to support centre leaders.

There have been significant changes in staffing and leadership since the September 2016 ERO review, including the appointment of a new centre manager. Many staff are new, with a mix of experienced, provisionally-certificated and in-training teachers. The service philosophy is about to be reviewed.

The previous ERO report identified areas for development, including assessment and planning processes, internal evaluation, and culturally responsive strategies. Progress is evident in these areas.

The Review Findings

Children are settled, focused and busy. They confidently participate in centre routines. Teachers work alongside children at their level, scaffolding learning and friendships within play. Interactions are positive and responsive. Teachers provide resources that encourage meaningful and enjoyable exploration. They foster children's sense of belonging with a range of useful strategies, including using families' home languages in conversations.

Infants and toddlers benefit from warm, nurturing relationships with their teachers. Care routines are calm and unhurried. Staff speak clearly and respectfully to these young learners, scaffolding their oral language and supporting them to make choices. They are highly responsive to children's non- verbal communication and cues.

A next step for teachers is to consult with families and community about the learning outcomes that matter most at this centre. This should help to establish localised curriculum priorities and update the centre philosophy. Leaders agree that clarifying agreed teacher practices, based on the new philosophy, would further support consistent practice throughout the service.

Teachers engage with children and their parents’ language and culture to make the setting more meaningful. Staff are aware that interactions with Pacific parents and communities need to be culturally responsive, and take time to find words and phrases they can use in different Pacific languages. Children have regular opportunities to see, hear and experience elements of te ao Māori. The service acknowledges Māori as tangata whenua and are exploring how to further develop partnerships with them.

Teachers liaise with parents and external agencies, as appropriate, to support children with diverse learning and behaviour needs.

Recent improvements to assessment practice, focused on individual children’s learning journeys, are currently being embedded. Teachers prioritise parent aspirations within these processes, and are increasingly weaving children's unique cultures, languages and identities into documentation. Best examples show:

  • clear evidence of children’s progress, based on attentive observations

  • useful, relevant links to key early childhood education documents and research

  • teachers collaborating with whānau to plan for and evaluate children's learning.

The next step for all teachers is to further develop planning practices. They should make clear in documentation how they plan deliberate, individualised teaching strategies to challenge and extend each child's learning. How they use these strategies, and evaluate their effectiveness, should be better captured.

Internal evaluation is building practice and shared understandings. Teachers use a systematic approach to collaborate, engage in research and professional discussion, and seek feedback from their learning community. Indicators of success are used well to measure improvements. To enhance practice, teachers should shift the focus of internal evaluation and teacher inquiries to children's outcomes. This would better support teachers to know the impacts of their practice on children's learning.

A useful appraisal process supports continual teacher development. Newer teachers are well supported to grow their professional capability.

The team is establishing a positive culture and use good communication to grow consistency of practice. The range of perspectives and strengths that teachers bring to the service is valued. Leaders encourage collaboration, and are successfully fostering an improvement-focused culture of critique and challenge. The service is well placed to continue improvements which promote positive outcomes for children.

Key Next Steps

ERO and leaders agree that key next steps are to:

  • review the service philosophy, prioritising outcomes valued by whānau and community
  • strengthen the planning of deliberate, tailored teacher strategies to support learning
  • focus internal evaluation and teacher inquiry processes on outcomes for children.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Busy Beez Childcare 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.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Director Review and Improvement Services Te Tai Tini

Southern Region

25 November 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

Upper Hutt

Ministry of Education profile number

60381

Licence type

Education & Care Service

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

50 children, including up to 20 aged under 2

Service roll

68

Gender composition

Boys 35, Girls 33

Ethnic composition

Māori
NZ European/Pākehā
Indian
Tongan
Other Pacific groups
Other ethnic groups

13
26
8
4
4
13

Percentage of qualified teachers

80% +

Reported ratios of staff to children

Under 2

1:5

Meets minimum requirements

Over 2

1:6

Better than minimum requirements

Review team on site

September 2019

Date of this report

25 November 2019

Most recent ERO reports

 

Education Review

September 2016

Education Review

July 2013

Education Review

August 2010

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.