29 Esplanade Road, Mt Eden, Auckland
View on mapERO’s Akanuku | Assurance Review reports provide information about whether a service meets and maintains regulatory standards. Further information about Akanuku | Assurance Reviews is included at the end of this report.
Regulatory standards |
ERO’s judgement |
|
Curriculum |
Meeting |
|
Premises and facilities |
Meeting |
|
Health and safety |
Meeting |
|
Governance, management and administration |
Meeting |
Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed non-compliances and is now taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.
Ficino Montessori Preschool is in the grounds of Ficino School. The preschool is governed by a charitable trust. The Ficino School principal is responsible for governance and management. A qualified centre manager leads the teaching team and is responsible for daily operations. More than half the children attending are of Chinese heritage.
A philosophy statement guides the service’s operation and expresses their beliefs and values about the provision of early childhood education. A language rich environment facilitates children’s learning opportunities. A range of experiences and opportunities are provided that enhance and extend children’s learning and development.
The service curriculum is inclusive, and responsive to children as confident and competent learners. Children’s preferences are respected, and they are involved in decisions about their learning experiences. Positive steps are taken to respect and acknowledge the aspirations held by parents and whānau for their children.
Ongoing monitoring is required by service leaders to ensure regulatory standards are maintained.
Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliances:
Ensuring an emergency plan includes a communication plan for families and support services, a list of emergency supplies sufficient for the age and number of children and adults at the service and evidence of review of this plan on an annual basis (HS7).
Having a documented procedure for checking equipment, premises and facilities every day of operation that includes consideration of dangerous objects, foreign materials and windows or other areas of glass (HS12).
Having prior written consent from parents for the adult:child ratio for regular and special excursions, and an assessment and management record of risks associated to regular excursions (HS17).
Ensuring medication records includes the name and amount of medication administered to children (HS28).
Having a record of training provided to adults who administer medicine to children (HS29).
Having a complaints procedure that includes the option to contact the local Ministry of Education office and provides their contact details (GMA1).
Providing information to parents about the amount and details of the expenditure of any Ministry of Education funding received by the service (GMA3).
Having a process for human resource management that includes discipline and dismissal procedures (GMA7).
Ensuring there are safety checking records that include an assessment of risk for all staff as required by the Children’s Act 2014 (GMA7A).
Maintaining attendance records that meet the requirements of the Funding Handbook (GMA11).
The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.
Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)
28 April 2023
| Early Childhood Service Name | Ficino Montessori Preschool |
| Profile Number | 47084 |
| Location | Mt Eden, Auckland |
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
|
Number licensed for |
30 children, including up to 0 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80-99% |
|
Service roll |
18 |
|
Review team on site |
February 2023 |
|
Date of this report |
28 April 2023 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, 2019 |
All services are licensed under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008. The legal requirements for early childhood services also include the Licensing Criteria for Education and Care Services 2008.
Services must meet the standards in the regulations and the requirements of the licensing criteria to gain and maintain a licence to operate.
having its first ERO review – including if it is part of a governing organisation
previously identified as ‘not well placed’ or ‘requiring further development’
that has moved from a provisional to a full licence
that have been re-licenced due to a change of ownership
where an Akanuku | Assurance Review process is determined to be appropriate.
All early childhood services are required to promote children’s health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements. Before the review, the staff and management of a service 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.
As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO assesses whether the regulatory standards are being met. In particular, ERO looks at a 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 certification; ratios)
relevant evacuation procedures and practices.
As part of an Akanuku | Assurance Review ERO also gathers and records evidence through:
discussions with those involved in the service
consideration of relevant documentation, including the implementation of health and safety systems observation.
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Ficino Preschool is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Ficino Preschool was opened during 2016 in the grounds of Ficino School. It offers full-time education and care for 30 children over the age of two years. One of its purposes is to support children as they transition to Ficino School. The preschool is governed by the Ficino Educational Trust board which provides an overarching policy and management framework.
The preschool is led by a head teacher. Three other qualified teachers, unqualified part-time teachers and a teacher aide complete the teaching team.
Children have opportunities to play together and have easy access to a large outside area. Teachers and children use a multipurpose room and utilise the close proximity of the school where they participate in specialist teaching and learning. The preschool's philosophy strives for a holistic approach that carefully nurtures children through love and play.
The preschool caters for a variety of cultures, with the largest proportion being Chinese. Teachers reflect some of the diverse cultures represented in the preschool.
Children settle easily into the service routines and play collaboratively or independently. Teacher and child affirming relationships are a feature of the preschool. Children know the routines well and move confidently between the activities. They have many opportunities to participate in local community events. Teachers value the relationships they have with parents and encourage their input into the programme. Children demonstrate a sense of belonging within the whole school community.
Children with diverse learning needs are well catered for. Teachers know the children and their families well and implement useful strategies to support them. The head teacher collaborates with external agencies when extra support and expertise is required.
Children have opportunities to learn about te ao Māori and te reo Māori. Children participate in Māori and Pacific language week activities.
The curriculum is philosophically based and supports children’s transition into Ficino School. Children’s interests are noticed and their dispositions and skills recognised. Teachers then prepare the learning spaces with activities to provoke and enhance these interests and skills. Teachers and children celebrate when children display the centre's virtues and values. The head teacher has identified strategic outcomes for children. It would be useful if teachers collaboratively define what the concepts in these outcomes could look like when children display them. They could use these indicators of good practice to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices.
Assessment of children's dispositional learning is recorded in portfolios of learning stories. At present many of these learning stories are group stories of children's participation in activities. Teachers should now plan ways to extend children's learning dispositions through deliberate acts of teaching, and show individual children's progress over time in the learning stories. Teachers need to consider ways for children to further lead their own learning through a play-based curriculum, and have more opportunities for uninterrupted, sustained and self-selected play.
Teachers should review the transition to school programme with a view to ensuring that the principles and strands of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, are evident in the planning for transition, and focus on children learning school-readiness skills during play.
Teachers have been trialling a variety of frameworks to plan for children's learning. Further development of frameworks that clearly capture multiple voices as well as children's skills could improve teachers' evaluation of the impact of teaching practices on learning outcomes for children.
The preschool's strategic plan aligns to the Ficino School plan. Strategic and annual plans would be more useful if they identified preschool-specific goals to further improve children’s learning, and ways to meet these goals. These could be recorded and evaluated in the annual plan.
Teachers have opportunities to participate in appropriate professional learning and development (PLD) to enhance the philosophical curriculum and teacher practice. Teachers would benefit from ongoing participation in PLD around Te Whāriki. The preschool has been trialling a variety of ways of managing staff performance. They should ensure a process is now embedded so that teachers are appraised annually.
The head teacher has implemented a useful framework for guiding internal evaluation. Teachers should undertake PLD to increase their capability to evaluate all preschool operations in relation to valued outcomes for children.
The head teacher and teacher agree that useful next steps for improvement include:
evaluating the transition to school programme in line with the principles and strands of Te Whāriki
building teacher understanding of Te Whāriki
building teacher capability with internal evaluation to evaluate the impact of their teaching practices on outcomes for children
continuing to access external expertise and use internal capability to enhance internal evaluation processes for ongoing improvement.
Before the review, the staff and management of Ficino Preschool 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:
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.
To improve current practice, the head teacher should:
review policies and procedures to ensure the employment policy reflects preschool practices and meets the requirements of the Vulnerable Children's Act
use internal evaluation processes to identify the effectiveness of teaching practices on outcomes for children, and on all preschool operations for ongoing improvement.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services Northern
Northern Region
6 March 2019
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.
|
Location |
Mt Eden, Auckland |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
47084 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
30 children aged over 2 years |
||
|
Service roll |
29 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Boys 17 Girls 12 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori |
1 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80% + |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Over 2 |
1:8 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Review team on site |
December 2018 |
||
|
Date of this report |
6 March 2019 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
No previous ERO reports |
||
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:
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.
The overall judgement that ERO makes will depend on how well the service promotes positive learning outcomes for children. The categories are:
ERO has developed criteria for each category. These are available on ERO’s website.
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.