Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare

Education institution number:
47453
Service type:
Homebased Network
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
58
Address:

6B Jack Conway Avenue, Manukau, Auckland

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Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare

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 Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

(What the service knows about outcomes for learners)

Whakatō Emerging

Ngā Akatoro Domains

 

Learning Conditions
Organisational Conditions

Whakatō Emerging
Whakatō Emerging

2 Context of the Service

This service is one of three home-based networks under the same ownership. A senior leadership team is responsible for governance and administration. The team is led by an education manager and a recently appointed kaiako/coordinator who oversees curriculum and health and safety. Most of the children attending are Māori or have Pacific heritages.

3 Summary of findings

Children learn in a play-based context and are active participants in their learning. They appear settled, and confident in exploring within the home environments. Kaiako and educators know children well and respond to their individual needs, interests, and abilities. Children trust that adults will be available to help them.

Māori and Pacific children, and children from diverse ethnicities are supported to experience a curriculum that values their cultures. These good practices could be strengthened by increasing the extent to which children's identities and languages are acknowledged and recognised in curriculum records, including in the assessment of children’s individual learning. Leaders are seeking ways to strengthen their use of te reo Māori and inclusion of tikanga Māori into the curriculum and educators’ daily practices.

Positive relationships between parents and educators are evident. Most of the educators are grandparents looking after grandchildren. Opportunities for whānau to contribute and participate in the curriculum are yet to be purposely planned. Leaders recognise a key priority is for the kaiako to develop partnerships with parents and educators that focus on supporting children’s learning.

Leaders are developing collaborative ways of working. Kaiako monthly records show how educators’ knowledge and skills are mentored to better support children's learning.

Leaders are improvement focused. They have developed systems to electronically record data in a timely and efficient manner. Leaders have identified that they need to strengthen internal evaluation practices to monitor ongoing improvement. Developing specific long-term improvement goals for this network, that link to the strategic direction of the wider organisation, would be useful.

4 Improvement actions

Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement planning:

  • To develop an understanding of internal evaluation and self-review that increases leaders’ capability to do and use evaluation that is focused on improved learning outcomes for children.

  • To design and implement a responsive curriculum that explicitly demonstrates and celebrates children’s identity, cultures, and languages.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare 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)

23 May 2023

6 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name

Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare

Profile Number 47453
Location Auckland

Service type

Home-based service

Number licensed for

80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 years

Percentage of qualified teachers

80-99%

Service roll

51

Review team on site

January 2023

Date of this report

23 May 2023

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, July 2020

Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare - 02/07/2020

1 Evaluation of Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare

How well placed is Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.

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

Background

Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare is licensed to provide in-home education and care services. Currently there are 60 children on the roll from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds. Most of the children are of Pacific Island heritage. The philosophy of the service focuses on children reaching their full potential working alongside a primary caregiver. Family and whānau are recognised as an integral part of enabling educators and visiting teachers to fully understand each child.

The service has been operating since June 2019 and is led by the two owners. One is a qualified early childhood teacher who leads the curriculum and has the role of both educator and visiting teacher. One other visiting teacher is employed. They work together to provide support and guidance for 15 educators working in their own homes in the Auckland region, through regular monthly visits.

This is the first ERO review of the service.

The Review Findings

Transitions into the service are carefully considered by service leaders to ensure children's languages and cultures are nurtured and celebrated. Retention of home languages is recognised as important for children's wellbeing. Children benefit from the small group sizes which enable individual care.

Visiting teachers ensure all families are visited at least monthly. These visits are both planned and spontaneous. Brief notes are written for educators after each visit. The Ngā Ara programme is used to support educators to move through different levels of training.

Service leaders are focused on the continued implementation of bicultural practice. Visit note templates include suggestions for educators about how to include te reo, tikanga and te ao Māori in daily programmes with children. Leaders could now review the effectiveness of visiting teacher feedback to educators. This feedback could be more detailed and targeted to the growth of individual educators on all aspects of teaching and learning.

Many opportunities are provided for parents and whānau to give feedback to educators and visiting teachers on all aspects of service operations. Leaders could now consider whether the information they are currently gathering is useful to enhance the quality of the provision for children. Parent survey documents could be more targeted to focus on children's learning.

Visiting teachers plan group topics and learning experiences for educators to include in their daily programmes. There is a strong focus on children developing literacy and numeracy skills. Visiting teachers could work with educators to plan more meaningful opportunities for mathematics and literacy learning using children's interests. Consideration could also be given to how children might be involved in a wider range of activities that embrace outdoor play and enhance their creativity.

Children's learning records show their participation in curriculum experiences and their progress over time. Planning could now focus on how visiting teachers and educators will encourage children's complex thinking based on their current interests.

Service owners have established a good framework of policies and procedures. Internal evaluation is at the early stages of development and is compliance focused.

Key Next Steps

Key next steps include:

  • visiting teachers and educators using Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, to develop meaningful programme plans for individual children and learning-based partnerships with whānau

  • developing a process of curriculum evaluation to review the impact of teaching strategies on children's learning

  • more consistent monitoring of the service's templates and forms to ensure policies and procedures are strictly followed

  • implementing a system of appraisal for visiting teachers and educators.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Aspire Learning Home Based Childcare completed an ERO Home-based Education and Care 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 review the service has addressed areas of non-compliance relating to teacher appraisal, police vetting, and children's health and safety.

Steve Tanner

Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)

Northern Region - Te Tai Raki

2 July 2020

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 Home-based Education and Care Service

Location

Auckland

Ministry of Education profile number

47453

Institution type

Homebased Network

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

50 children, including up to 30 aged under 2

Service roll

60

Standard or Quality Funded

Standard

Gender composition

Boys 35 Girls 25

Ethnic composition

Māori
Tongan
Samoan
Cook Island Māori
other ethnic groups

3
25
19
6
7

Number of qualified coordinators in the network

2

Required ratios of educators to children

Under 2

1:2

Over 2

1:4

Review team on site

March 2020

Date of this report

2 July 2020

Most recent ERO report(s)

 

This is the first ERO report of the service.

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 the draft methodology for ERO reviews in Home-based Education and Care Services: July 2008

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.