72 Apollo Drive, Albany, Auckland
View on map|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Playschool Wellington One is one of eight networks offering home-based education and care that operates under the umbrella of Playschool Education. The main office is located in Auckland. The service, which is owned and managed by the director has been in operation for 10 years and now includes home-based networks in a variety of places throughout the North Island.
The service employs support personnel and a team of programme coordinators who regularly visit all of the children in the service and support the educators in their practice. Programme coordinators are fully trained teachers and bring a variety of early childhood education experience to their role.
The service is developing new systems to be implemented during 2017. These systems are intended to support effective day to day operations and children's learning. The service caters for a diverse community. Parents are the employers of the educators.
This review was part of a cluster of five reviews of Playschool networks. Three of these networks were part of the 2013 ERO review.
The service offers a variety of education and care options. Families are able to choose between au pair, whānau members or nannies. Whānau members provide care in their own homes for their whānau and grandchildren, and nannies work with children in the children's homes. A sister company aligned with Playschool engages au pair from overseas to live with families and to work with their children. The majority of au pair live for up to a year with the families and management use effective systems to manage smooth transitions between au pairs.
Playschool Wellington One is licensed to cater for 80 children between birth and five years of age from local communities. All children in this network identify as Pākehā. Most of the educators in this network are au pair or grandparents.
Management has a clear philosophy and focus on providing quality education and care for children and support for families in Wellington. The owner provides valuable and regular opportunities for the programme coordinator to travel to Auckland to be part of discussions and decision making. Management members visit Wellington to provide hands-on help in further building the network.
Documentation indicates that programme coordinators have good knowledge about families/whānau and their children. Their regular monthly visits are used to model good teaching and give encouragement to support educators' professional growth. Programme coordinators expect educators to include aspirations expressed by families/whānau in the programmes they provide for children. They support educators to increase resources, experiences and opportunities as ways of engaging children in learning through play. The service helps to fund extra community-based experiences to further support children's learning.
The manager and her team provide regular opportunities for productive professional development that has led to the present changes in the organisation. These include a stronger and positive focus on te Ao Māori, and internal evaluation. The building of emergent leadership has been a very positive aspect of recent service operations.
As a result of intensive internal evaluation over the last year, management and the team of programme coordinators have redeveloped many of the resources and guiding material used for managing the work of the service. The service gathered multiple voices to guide these changes. The new manual for educators includes a series of training modules for educators completed over a year. There is a greater focus on extending learning for children and strengthening the use of te reo and tikanga Māori in written and spoken forms.
During 2017 children will be provided with new portfolios for educators to record learning stories and comments about what they observe of children's learning. Programme coordinators and whānau are encouraged to contribute to the children's learning journey. New documentation shows the potential to continue to streamline care and safety procedures.
The newly developed appraisal system for educators has the potential to help identify areas for support and development. A renewed appraisal system for Programme Coordinators meets the requirements of the Education Council. This should be now be embedded in practices. Review dates for making judgements about the effectiveness of these new developments are in place. The work undertaken by the team is a positive step in the growing professionalism of the service. The appraisal process for the service curriculum manager needs to be strengthened to ensure a robust and meaningful process is in place.
ERO and management agree that the key next steps for the service are to:
introduce new documentation to educators, support the embedding of new recording systems and evaluate the effectiveness of these processes in due time
provide increased time for programme coordinators to undertake this work
continue to increase educators' responsibility for decision-making in the curriculum
consider ways to include Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and practices in management documentation.
Before the review, the staff and management of Playschool Wellington One 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.
The next ERO review of Playschool Wellington One will be in three years.
Graham Randell
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern
22 February 2017
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 |
Albany, Auckland |
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Ministry of Education profile number |
46640 |
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Institution 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 80 aged under 2 |
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Service roll |
12 |
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Standard or Quality Funded |
Standard |
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Gender composition |
Girls 8, Boys 4 |
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Ethnic composition |
Pākehā |
12 |
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Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
1 |
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Required ratios of staff educators to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
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Over 2 |
1:4 |
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Review team on site |
January 2017 |
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Date of this report |
22 February 2017 |
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Most recent ERO report(s)
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No previous 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 the draft methodology for ERO reviews in Home-based Education and Care Services: July 2014
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.