Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay

Education institution number:
80013
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
10
Telephone:
Address:

10 Greenacres Street, Macandrew Bay, Dunedin

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Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay

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 (PDF 3.01MB) are the basis for making judgements about the effectiveness of the service in achieving equity and excellence for all learners. The Akarangi Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric (PDF 91.30KB) derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this service’s performance in promoting equity and excellence.

ERO’s judgements for Family Ties Educare – Macandrew Bay are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

ERO’s judgement

What the service knows about outcomes for learners

Whakaū Embedding

Ngā Akatoro Domains

ERO’s judgement

He Whāriki Motuhake

The learner and their learning

Whakaū Embedding

Whakangungu Ngaio

Collaborative professional learning builds knowledge and capability

Whakaū Embedding

Ngā Aronga Whai Hua

Evaluation for improvement

Whāngai Establishing

Kaihautū

Leaders foster collaboration and improvement

Whakaū Embedding

Te Whakaruruhau

Stewardship through effective governance and management

Whakaū Embedding

2 Context of the Service

This small service is in a refurbished home, with a large outdoor area. The service is one of three, owned and operated under Family Ties Educare. The owner plays a leadership and governance role, as the managing director. A recently appointed head teacher works with an experienced and qualified early childhood teacher.

3 Summary of findings

Children are well supported in their learning and wellbeing. Teachers deliberately plan and resource a wide range of learning experiences and use a range of effective strategies to challenge and extend children.

Teachers foster children’s social and emotional competence, provide engaging early literacy and mathematics learning, and opportunities for dramatic play, thinking, reasoning and exploration. A recent review of the learning environment led to well-considered changes.

Teachers closely observe children, gathering rich information about their developing capabilities, interests and strengths. More work is required to improve individual assessment documentation to more deliberately reference children's goals and learning in relation to the Te Whāriki learning outcomes, particularly in relation to their progress. 

Group planning provides a shared focus for teachers and children and offers an extension to the programme.

Children have meaningful opportunities to learn about te ao and te reo Māori. These could be extended by the inclusion of local cultural narratives, history and places of significance. Children’s diverse cultures and traditions are valued, with teachers finding ways to build understanding and inclusion.

Parents are valued partners in children’s learning. With teachers, they identify children’s individual learning goals. Teachers work closely with parents and external experts to support children with additional learning needs.

Leaders and teachers reflect, plan and work collaboratively to implement a responsive and interesting curriculum. An effective appraisal process and relevant professional learning contribute to ongoing inquiry and improvement.

A process for review has been implemented and has been used to improve aspects of the curriculum. Building staff capability to do and use internal evaluation to better determine actions for improvement is not yet well established.  

Leaders are improvement focused. They promote a shared understanding of the service’s philosophy and priorities for children’s learning. A sound policy and procedure framework is complemented by useful resources, and clear expectations for best practice. These contribute to the smooth running of the service, enabling teachers to focus on children, their learning and wellbeing.

4 Improvement actions

Family Ties Educare – Macandrew Bay will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning. These are to:

  • embed more purposeful use of the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki to evaluate and report on children’s progress
  • continue to strengthen the local curriculum, including places and stories significant to local Māori
  • establish internal evaluation processes and practice. As part of this process include parent and child voice in the data gathering phase.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Family Ties Educare – Macandrew Bay 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 (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

4 November 2021 

6 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name Family Ties Educare – Macandrew Bay
Profile Number 80013
Location Dunedin

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

26 children, including up to 10 aged under 2.

Percentage of qualified teachers

80%+

Service roll

12 

Ethnic composition

Māori 2, NZ European/Pākehā 7, Other ethnic groups 3.

Review team on site

May 2021

Date of this report

4 November 2021

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, March 2017; Education Review, August 2013.

Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay - 23/03/2017

1 Evaluation of Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay

How well placed is Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

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

Background

Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay provides a home-like environment for children's full day education and care. The centre operates in a house with a large outside environment that adjoins the local primary school playground. The centre's inside environment has been recently refurbished with some redevelopment to improve teaching and learning areas. The centre's vision is to develop socially competent children with a 'yearn to learn'.

This review was part of a cluster of three privately-owned centres in the Family Ties Educare organisation. The managing director of the organisation is one of the owners/licensees. She is actively involved in some of the day-to-day centre operations. This centre is currently licensed for 26 children, including 10 under two years of age. At the time of this review there were no under twos.

Since the 2013 ERO review, staffing has been stable with one teacher taking on the role of lead teacher. The ratio of children to teachers is low. The Family Ties Educare management team has recently improved the centre's capacity to respond to the areas identified for development in the last ERO report. A programme advisor was appointed in October 2016. She is supporting leadership and curriculum development across the organisation.

The Review Findings

Children show a strong sense of belonging to the centre and with their teachers. The teaching staff know the children and their interests well. Respectful, inclusive relationships are highly evident between teachers, children and their parents and wider whānau. This can be seen in the warm, welcoming interactions between members of the centre community and teaching team, and in the way children's behaviour is positively managed. Teachers are successfully sharing children's learning with their parents and whānau via digital learning stories. 

Teachers are readily adopting and implementing improved collaborative processes for assessing, planning and evaluating children's learning. It will be important to continue to embed these.

Strengths of this centre include:

  • teachers maintaining responsive, reciprocal relationships with children, parents and wider whānau

  • the way in which te reo Māori is used by teachers and children as part of the daily programme and the natural integration of te ao Māori

  • the significant contribution some parents make to the centre programme and resources

  • greater involvement and focus on children leading their own learning

  • smooth transitions within the day between centre routines and children's play.

The recently appointed programme advisor is effectively building staff and leadership capability at Family Ties Educare. She and the managing director have identified areas for significant improvement in the planning and assessment of children's learning. Staff have received some high quality internal professional learning and are positively engaged in the ongoing developments. Improvements have been made to strategic planning and some centre operational systems.

The programme advisor has effectively:

  • evaluated and reported on the quality of assessment and planning for children's learning across the organisation

  • worked with the head teachers and teaching teams to improve the quality of assessment, planning and expectations for evaluating children's learning

  • developed teachers' confidence and ability to understand children's learning and the impact of their teaching practices.

The managing director and programme advisor have rewritten the strategic plan to usefully reflect the key priorities for centre and organisation improvement. Centre management should find manageable ways to be systematically informed on centre's progress toward meeting relevant annual goals and strategic priorities.

Key Next Steps

ERO, centre managers and the programme advisor agree that to sustain recent developments the programme advisor and head teachers should continue to work with the teaching teams to:

  • further develop evaluation of individual children's learning

  • refine the current assessment and planning model, particularly for individual children and explore ways to make children's learning goals known and shared

  • build teachers' understanding and implementation of self review within the centre and across the organisation

  • review the sufficiency of outdoor resources and learning opportunities, within and beyond the centre.

The programme advisor and managing director should continue to support current leadership development. This should include clarifying and documenting lead-teacher roles and responsibilities and how the Family Ties Educare philosophy is personalised by/for each centre.

The managing director must ensure that appraisal is rigorous, robust and meaningful for teachers, as identified in the last ERO report. Annual appraisals of teaching staff have not been completed. The managing director has introduced a new on-line system for teacher appraisal. Staff are in the early stages of working with this model.

In 2016 the Family Ties Educare organisation has undergone a number of key changes, including in personnel. To best meet their 'good employer' responsibilities, the management should more frequently seek reliable, anonymous feedback about how staff feel about their employment conditions (including roles and responsibilities).

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay 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.

Next ERO Review

When is ERO likely to review the service again?

The next ER80013O review of Family Ties Educare - Macandrew Bay will be in three years.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Te Waipounamu)

23 March 2017

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

Dunedin

Ministry of Education profile number

80013

Licence type

Education & Care Service

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

26 children, including up to 10 aged under 2

Service roll

27

Gender composition

Boys: 15

Girls: 12

Ethnic composition

Māori

Pākehā

4

23

Percentage of qualified teachers

0-49% 50-79% 80%+

Based on funding rates

80% +

Reported ratios of staff to children

Over 2

1:8

Better than minimum requirements

Review team on site

December 2016

Date of this report

23 March 2017

Most recent ERO report(s)

 

Education Review

August 2013

Supplementary Review

April 2011

Supplementary Review

March 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 and Next Review

The overall judgement that ERO makes and the timing of the next review will depend on how well placed a service is to promote positive learning outcomes for children. The categories are:

  • Very well placed – The next ERO review in four years
  • Well placed – The next ERO review in three years
  • Requires further development – The next ERO review within two years
  • Not well placed - The next ERO review in consultation with the Ministry of Education

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.