Sweet Pea Early Learning Centre

1 ERO’s Judgements

Akarangi | 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 Akarangi Quality 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 Sweet Pea Early Learning Centre are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Sweet Pea Early Learning Centre is a privately-owned service established in May 2018, located in rural Canterbury. The owners manage the day-to-day operations. There have been minimal changes in staffing since ERO’S 2019 report. There are specific learning areas for infants, toddlers and young children. Almost a quarter of children are of Māori descent, with a small number from Pacific heritages.

3 Summary of findings

Children’s learning and development is well-supported through, responsive relationships with their teachers and peers. A range of teacher and child-led experiences foster children’s interest and learning. There are multiple opportunities for early literacy and numeracy learning within a language-rich environment. Priority learners are clearly identified. Teachers work closely alongside external agencies and whānau to identify learning support needs and flexibly support children’s learning and development.

Children have some opportunities to experience aspects of a bi-cultural curriculum. This includes waiata, karakia, greetings and basic language use. Further strengthening is required to:

• increase the opportunities for children to hear and speak te reo Māori within day-to-day interactions

• develop a curriculum that reflects the local pūrakau, histories and aspirations of mana whenua.

Teachers implement useful processes for assessing, planning and evaluating children’s learning. Records of learning show that planning is responsive to children’s interests and whānau aspirations and clearly align to the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Children’s learning progress over time is consistently evident. However, documentation does not consistently show how teachers recognise and respond to children’s individual languages, cultures and identities.

Leaders are improvement focused. They ensure the service’s philosophy and learning priorities underpin the curriculum and decision making. A well-implemented professional growth cycle allows for collaboration that builds teacher practice. Relevant professional learning aligned to the priorities promotes positive outcomes for children.

Internal evaluation is clear and purposeful and supports decisions for improvement, however could more clearly show the impact of the improvements made on outcomes for children. The service has embedded systems, practices, and processes for quality assurance.

4 Improvement actions

Sweet Pea Early Learning Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• make more visible children’s languages, cultures and identities within documentation and the environment

• further develop a localised curriculum that integrates te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and the history, and aspirations of local iwi

• show more clearly at the monitoring and evaluating impact phase of the evaluation the impact of changes and improvements made on outcomes for children.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Sweet Pea Early Learning Centre 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.

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

22 May 2023 

6 About the Early Childhood Service