Kiwi Kids Preschool

Kiwi Kids Preschool - 16 May 2024

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 Kiwi Kids Preschool are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Kiwi Kids Preschool is a privately owned early learning service. It changed ownership in November 2022.  The new co-owners govern and teach and are supported by a centre manager. The service is culturally diverse. A small number of tamariki Māori and children of Pacific heritages attend. Some progress has been made since the 2020 ERO review. However, the bicultural curriculum still requires further development.

3 Summary of findings

Children explore and learn in the expansive outdoor play areas. They have opportunities to choose from planned activities. They experience supportive routines that help to build their independence and self-care. There is a strong focus on social and emotional competence. Children are encouraged to take care of their learning environment. They learn from each other and their teachers. Infants and toddlers experience calm, unhurried interactions with attentive teachers, who give younger children the time and space to explore freely. 

Relationships with parents and whānau are established. Parents’ aspirations for their child’s learning are gathered. However, these are yet to inform individual children’s planning for learning. The service is at the early stages of using the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Assessment documentation does not clearly show intended learning or children’s progress over time.

The bicultural curriculum is in the early stages of development. There are some opportunities for teachers to extend their use of te reo Māori through leadership within the centre. However, te reo Māori and tikanga Māori require deeper integration into the daily programme. Although children’s diverse cultural backgrounds are increasingly visible within the curriculum, assessment documentation does not yet reflect children’s individual languages, cultures, and learner identities.

The new owners are building trusting relationships with the team. With leaders they are building their shared understandings about the service’s operation and pedagogical leadership. The centre’s philosophy for children’s learning - “Freedom, Fun, and Family” is actively promoted. Leaders’ and teachers’ understandings to do and use internal evaluation for improvement are variable. Building collective capability and further refining and consolidating approaches to evaluative practice is required. 

4 Improvement actions

Kiwi Kids Preschool will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Develop and implement a rich, local culturally responsive bicultural curriculum for all children.
• Further develop a shared understanding of the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki and use these to show children’s learning and progress over time. 
• Explicitly show how parents’ aspirations are used to inform planning for children’s intended learning and make visible in assessment documentation children’s individual cultures, languages and learner identities.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Kiwi Kids Preschool 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)

16 May 2024

6 About the Early Childhood Service 

Past Reports