- ERO evaluates and reports on the education and care of children and young people in early childhood services and schools.
How well placed is Honey Bees to promote positive learning outcomes for children?
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Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Honey Bees is a privately run inner-city centre that provides care and education for children over the age of two. The centre opened eighteen months ago. It has been thoughtfully designed to maximise the advantages of its fifth floor, bright and spacious setting. It caters for parents who work in the city, as well as locally-based families.
The centre is led by its owners and head teacher. The owners have a high profile in the centre and are fully involved in its operation. The head teacher has responsibility for daily operations in terms of programme planning and delivery. She is supported by a recently appointed assistant. All teachers are qualified and registered.
Centre leaders and teachers have collaborated well to meet their vision of promoting creativity, fun and learning, and their philosophy based on building each child’s strengths, interests and abilities. They have made impressive progress in establishing high quality provisions for children and their families within a short timeframe.
Children receive a warm welcome into the centre. They play and learn in a supportive and peaceful environment, receiving high levels of care from respectful and thoughtful adults. Children are very settled. They respond positively to centre routines and to the sensitive support they receive from teachers. Children approach adults with confidence, play happily with and alongside each other, and quickly develop the independence needed to initiate their own play and learning.
Teachers clearly view children as confident and capable learners. They implement programmes that privilege all forms of play and that encourage children’s in-depth exploration of the world around them. Teachers engage children in high levels of conversation, enriching their language and understanding, and supporting them to create, problem solve and investigate. Teachers’ high expectations and skilled practices successfully promote children’s acquisition of early literacy, numeracy and scientific skills and understandings.
The programme is highly responsive to children’s emergent interests. It includes activities and resources that celebrate both bicultural New Zealand and the different cultures of children who attend. Parents have many meaningful opportunities to have a voice in the programme provided for their children. They are provided with very well presented assessment portfolios that contain rich evidence of children’s participation, new learning, growth and development.
Centre leaders are energetic, enthusiastic and future-focussed. Their high quality practices support and promote the professional development of teachers. Thoughtful and realistic self review guides centre operations and helps ensure responsiveness to the needs of children and their families. High quality leadership and increasingly effective long-term planning position the centre very well to retain its strengths and promote ongoing improvement.
The centre leaders and ERO agree that key next steps in the centre’s very good provisions could now include:
Before the review, the staff and management of Honey Bees 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.
When is ERO likely to review the service again?
The next ERO review of Honey Bees will be in three years.
Graham Randell
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)
7 September 2015
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.
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Location |
Auckland CBD |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46310 |
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Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
38 children, including up to 0 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
40 |
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Gender composition |
Girls 22 Boys 18 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori NZ European/Pākehā Chinese Indian Samoan other |
1 23 8 3 1 4 |
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Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80% Based on funding rates |
80% |
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Reported ratios of staff to children |
Over 2 |
1:8 |
Better than minimum requirements |
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Review team on site |
July 2015 |
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Date of this report |
7 September 2015 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) These are available at www.ero.govt.nz |
No previous ERO reports |
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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.
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.
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.