9 Altair Place, Windsor Park, 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 |
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Curriculum |
Meeting |
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Premises and facilities |
Meeting |
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Health and safety |
Meeting |
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Governance, management and administration |
Meeting |
Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed a non-compliance and is now taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards.
This is the first review of Multilingual Kids under its new ownership. Governance is provided by the owner and visiting kaiako. The service philosophy is strongly focused on children retaining their home languages, connections to their cultures and becoming multilingual. A high proportion of educators and children are of Russian heritage.
The service curriculum respects and supports the right of each child to be confident in their own culture and encourages children to understand and respect other cultures. The curriculum provides a language-rich environment that supports children’s learning.
Adults providing education and care engage in meaningful, positive interactions to enhance children’s learning and nurture reciprocal relationships. Positive steps are taken to respect and acknowledge the aspirations held by parents and whānau for their children.
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.
Next steps include:
continuing to build educators’ knowledge and use of te reo and tikanga Māori.
During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliance:
Whenever children leave the premises on an excursion, a supervision plan specific to that excursion is developed and implemented (HS14).
The next ERO review is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation.
Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)
31 July 2023
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Early Childhood Service Name |
Multilingual Kids |
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Profile Number |
46861 |
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Location |
Windsor Park, Auckland |
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Service type |
Home-based service |
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Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 |
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Percentage of qualified teachers |
50-79% |
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Service roll |
48 |
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Review team on site |
July 2023 |
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Date of this report |
31 July 2023 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
First ERO review of the service. |
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
observations of the environment/premises, curriculum implementation and teaching practice.
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Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Multilingual Kids Home-based ECE Service is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Multilingual Kids Home-based ECE Service is licensed to provide in-home care and education for up to 80 children, including 40 children aged under two years. There are currently 99 children on the roll from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds. Most of the children are of Russian heritage.
The service has been operating since January 2016 and is led by the two owners. Both are qualified early childhood teachers, and also have a coordinator role. They work together to provide support and guidance, through regular monthly visits, for 23 educators working in their own homes in the Auckland region.
All educators are encouraged and supported to complete basic childcare qualifications. The whole team comes together regularly for events, celebrations and meetings. Playgroup meetings include opportunities for educators to learn more about early childhood education and care. These meetings are held fortnightly in two locations.
The philosophy of the service focuses on children being secure in their language, culture and identity. Retention of home languages is recognised as important for children's wellbeing. Children are supported to become fluent speakers of their mother tongue and at least one other social language through a full immersion programme. The three main languages of the service are Russian, English and te reo Māori. Learning through play is valued and Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, is recognised as a guiding document.
This is the service's first ERO review.
Small group sizes allow each educator to form positive relationships with children in their care. Through observations of the children they identify and respond to each child's interests, strengths and abilities. For children aged under two years the programme is based on opportunities to explore and communicate. Educators develop a good awareness of children's individual communication styles.
Children have a wide range of opportunities to learn about the dual cultural heritage of Aotearoa. Waiata, te reo and tikanga Māori are well integrated into the programme. The service owners are investigating ways to support educators to deepen their knowledge in this area of practice.
Educators and coordinators maintain portfolios of children's learning that are individual to each child. Most of the documentation in children's portfolios is in Russian. Learning stories and assessment records show that children are offered a wide range of experiences to promote their exploration and learning.
Parents use the service's templates to provide detailed information about their children's interests, strengths and needs. Some also contribute regular stories from home. Coordinators are focused on developing more inclusive and collaborative ways of working with whānau when planning programmes for children.
The service owners work collaboratively to establish a culture of ongoing improvement. They have established a vision and philosophy that is responsive to the culture and identity of Russian families. These families have positively embraced the opportunity to have their children educated in an environment that strongly identifies with their language, culture and identity here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The owners and educators are working well together to realise the service's vision.
The establishment of a strategic plan would provide a sense of direction for the service. Annual planning, internal evaluation and appraisal goals could all then be aligned to the strategic goals. A framework of policies and procedures guides centre practices. This framework could now be streamlined to ensure there is cohesion and clear alignment between various policies and supporting procedures.
Service owners agree that key next steps for improvement include:
working with educators to develop shared understandings of what a quality programme looks like in this unique context
continuing to refine the process of internal evaluation
a deeper engagement with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, by coordinators and educators
developing a process of programme evaluation.
Before the review, the staff and management of Multilingual Kids Home-based ECE Service 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:
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.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services Northern
Northern Region
20 February 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.
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Location |
Birkdale, Auckland |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46861 |
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Licence type |
Homebased Network |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 40 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
99 |
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Gender composition |
Boys 54 Girls 45 |
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
2 |
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Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
2 |
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Reported ratios of staff to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
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Over 2 |
1:4 |
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Review team on site |
January 2019 |
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Date of this report |
20 February 2019 |
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
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:
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.