23 Nairn Street, Wakari, Dunedin
View on mapAkarangi | 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 Montessori House Casa dei Bambini are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
|
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whakaū Embedding |
Montessori House Casa dei Bambini provides education and care for children from birth-to-school age. Younger children learn within the Nido area. The service is one of three privately owned services. The owner is the director, and with the head teachers, manages day-to-day operations and oversees teaching and learning. Good progress has been made against most recommendations in ERO’s 2016 report.
Children benefit from a very well-resourced curriculum that is consistent with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, and the Montessori approach. Older children show high levels of engagement and have rich opportunities to develop social competency, early mathematics and literacy, independence, and responsibility. Infants and toddlers learn in an unhurried setting and experience respectful, nurturing relationships. They are thoughtfully supported in their learning and in their transition from Nido to Casita rooms. Leaders and teachers work closely with parents and external agencies to support children who need extra help with their learning.
Leaders and teachers are embedding recent changes to how they assess and plan for individual children’s learning. They are becoming increasingly intentional in using learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, when planning for and evaluating children’s progress with their learning. Recent learning records respond to parents’ aspirations for their child’s learning and make their progress more visible. Individual plans often have multiple goals, learning outcomes and strategies and due to their complexity do not give clear guidance to teachers and parents.
Leaders and teachers work collaboratively to plan for children’s learning and support each other’s ongoing professional learning. Evaluation of aspects of teaching has resulted in improved practices. However, there is variable understanding of internal evaluation as a tool to guide improvement actions. There has been insufficient gathering of information to inform past evaluations and desired outcomes have not been child centred.
Overall, the service is well governed and managed. Easy to follow policies and procedures contribute in most cases to sound implementation of health and safety practices. Leaders have developed a three-year plan that outlines planned improvements but have yet to collaborate with teachers to develop and implement this and more detailed annual plans, to increase the likelihood of achieving these goals.
Montessori House Casa dei Bambini will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning. These are to:
Before the review, the staff and management of Montessori House Casa dei Bambini 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:
All early childhood services are required to promote children's health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements.
ERO identified the following area of non-compliance:
[Licencing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Centres 2008, HS17].
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
18 May 2022
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
| Early Childhood Service Name | Montessori House Casa dei Bambini |
| Profile Number | 83042 |
| Location | Dunedin |
|
Number licensed for |
45 children, including up to 16 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80-99% |
|
Service roll |
52 |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori 4, NZ European/Pākehā 31, Filipino 7, Other ethnic groups 5 |
|
Review team on site |
February 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
18 May 2022 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, November 2016; |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Montessori Casa dei Bambini provides education and care for children from infancy-to-school-age. There are three houses within the service, all managed by the owner. The owner is also the director. She works closely with a manager to provide leadership across the service. Two of the houses are under one licence on the same site. Casa is for children aged three to six years, and Nido is for infants up to two years of age. The third house 'Casita' provides for children aged between two-to-three years on a separate site nearby. Each house has a head teacher (kaitiaki) working alongside the teachers to provide a Montessori curriculum combined with Te Whāriki. This report refers to Casa house and Nido house.
Since the ERO report in 2013, the owner/director has led significant change and improvements within the service. She has a management structure that supports a collaborative approach. This has enabled the skills of her teaching team to be used for the benefit of children and the centre community. The leaders and teachers have developed a comprehensive philosophy. This guides practice across the organisation towards achieving the service's goals for the future. The key aim of the service is that children become capable, confident, life-long learners. Teachers follow the children’s lead and nurture their learning and development through respectful, caring relationships.
Families and children are warmly welcomed and feel comfortable at the centre. The teachers are passionate about children’s learning and strongly believe in the values and aims that underpin the Montessori and Pikler approach. Teachers place high importance on developing respectful and trusting relationships between themselves and with the children and their families.
Children are encouraged to take responsibility for the centre environment and feel that it is their place. Teachers are respectful of children’s choices and value their input. It is the children who guide the teachers' responses and determine the daily programme.
Teachers deliberately create and foster a calm, positive, peaceful environment for learning. They have clear expectations for behaviour, and are consistent in the way they support children to cooperate at play and interact with one another. Environments are well organised, uncluttered and set up with a clear learning purpose.
Children are assigned to particular teachers who plan their learning and ensure their care needs are met. The knowledge teachers have about children is shared with other teachers so they can work together as a team to support children's learning. In the infant house, Nido, this is particularly evident. Teachers know the children very well and are highly responsive to their subtle non-verbal and verbal cues. Teachers conduct the day’s activities in a calm, unhurried and settled way that enhances children’s wellbeing.
Teachers plan and provide a wide range of experiences that build and extend children’s interests. Mathematics, language and literacy learning are highly valued. The learning programme has a strong focus on supporting learning through real-life experiences that link to children’s home life. Leaders and teachers regularly seek parents’ input into their child's learning, and discuss with them their child’s progress and next steps, and how these will be achieved.
A number of effective processes and practices help teachers track children’s progress. There is good evidence that children’s learning is increasing in complexity over time. Tracking systems are carefully monitored to ensure regular communication with parents and that information is up to date.
There is an awareness and celebration of the variety of cultures represented across the service. The mix of teachers and families from different cultures and backgrounds helps ensure that individual children with English as a second language receive the support they need.
The centre values Māori culture. Teachers promote an understanding of key concepts and knowledge of tikanga and te reo Māori. These are evident in the daily programme and children’s knowledge in this area is growing. Teachers are implementing plans to further extend the integration of Māori perspectives in the programme and environment and to build tikanga and te reo Māori use.
Other practices that have a positive impact on children’s learning and wellbeing include:
the strong, capable leaders who provide mentorship, and inspire and motivate teachers
the positive team culture and shared understandings of good practice
the strong culture of continuous improvement.
The owner/director is very supportive of leaders and teachers and the programme for children’s learning. She and her manager provide regular in-house opportunities for all teachers to learn. There has been significant development in the teachers' understanding of self review/evaluation. There are now thorough processes in place. Reviews look closely at the centre and at teachers' practice, and how well these factors create positive outcomes for children. The regular, robust discussions and ongoing mentoring of teachers is proving to be an excellent way to support teachers’ professional development.
The leaders and teachers know that the priority for the service is to consolidate the significant progress made since the last ERO review.
Management systems and the effective self-review processes enable leaders and teachers to identify their next steps.
The leaders and ERO agree that leaders and teachers need to continue to:
refine the service's key learning priorities and align these with self review
support the development of evaluative practice and a service-wide schedule of review
plan for ongoing service-wide bicultural development
build teachers' practice in implementing the Montessori curriculum.
Leaders have recently strengthened the service's appraisal system. This provides a good opportunity for teachers to share their learning and build best practice. Minor adjustments would further strengthen the process. It is also timely for the director to seek an external appraiser to support her professional development.
Before the review, the staff and management of Montessori House Casa dei Bambini 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.
The next ERO review of Montessori House Casa dei Bambini will be within four years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern
1 November 2016
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 |
Dunedin |
||
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
83042 |
||
|
Licence type |
Education & Care Service |
||
|
Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
||
|
Number licensed for |
45 children, including up to 16 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
52 |
||
|
Gender composition |
Girls: 29 Boys: 23 |
||
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori Pākehā Asian Samoan Brazilian |
2 33 13 1 3 |
|
|
Percentage of qualified teachers 0-49% 50-79% 80%+ Based on funding rates |
50-79% |
||
|
Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:3 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
Over 2 |
1:8 |
Better than minimum requirements |
|
|
Review team on site |
August 2016 |
||
|
Date of this report |
1 November 2016 |
||
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review |
May 2013 |
|
|
Education Review |
October 2009 |
||
|
Education Review |
August 2006 |
||
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:
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.