Big River Educare

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 Big River Educare are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Big River Educare is a privately owned service in a semi-rural location. The centre manager oversees daily operations and a fully qualified teaching team. A small number of children who attend are Māori or of Pacific heritage. Good progress has been made in the refinement of assessment for learning, internal evaluation and the development of a bi-cultural curriculum as identified as improvement actions in the 2020 ERO report.
 

3 Summary of findings

Children have the opportunity to develop and learn through highly responsive teacher interactions that support them to lead their own learning. Teachers effectively foster children’s independence in a deliberately designed broad curriculum and well-resourced environments. Children are encouraged to explore the living world, develop problem-solving strategies, and take increasing responsibility for their own learning. Children are socially confident and have positive learner identities.

Infants and toddlers learn through an intentionally planned curriculum that effectively supports and extends their strengths and abilities. Teachers demonstrate respectful care and interactions. Individualised transitions into, within and from the service to school, effectively support continuity of learning for children. Learning focused partnerships with parents provide meaningful opportunities to share their aspirations and identified priorities for their child’s learning. Children demonstrate a secure sense of well-being and belonging.

Assessment documentation clearly makes children’s individual progression of learning visible in relation to the service’s learning priorities and the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Children’s culture, language and learner identity is strongly evident in assessment documentation.

Leaders and teachers continue to make progress in implementing a bi-cultural curriculum where children have regular opportunities to see, hear and use te reo Māori. Collaborative professional learning opportunities result in teachers’ increasing understanding of the history of the local area. Leaders identify this as an ongoing area for further growth and development.

Systematic internal evaluations inform decision-making which results in changes to teacher practice and curriculum planning. Greater consideration of the impact of teacher shifts in practice and the outcomes for identified children and groups of children is required.

Those involved in governance and management are improvement focused. They implement systems, processes and well considered resource allocation clearly align to the service’s philosophy, identified learning priorities and strategic intentions.

4 Improvement actions

Big River Educare will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Further develop a local curriculum responsive to the histories and places of significance and continue to build teacher’s confidence to use meaningful te reo Māori across the breath of the curriculum.
• Through internal evaluation give greater consideration to the impact of shifts in teacher practice and the outcomes for individuals children and groups of children.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Big River Educare 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)

5 February 2024 

6 About the Early Childhood Service