73 Mountain Road, Mangere Bridge, Auckland
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 Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whāngai Establishing |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whāngai Establishing |
Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre is owned and governed by an experienced, qualified centre manager. She leads a team of 10 qualified teachers, and 11 support staff. About a fifth of children enrolled are Māori, and small numbers of children are from Cook Islands and other Pacific heritages. This is the first ERO review since a change of ownership in 2021.
Children communicate confidently and demonstrate a sense of belonging in the centre. Younger children benefit from teachers creating a calm environment. Older children have formed positive social friendships with peers and adults. All children have opportunities to learn about keeping themselves healthy and safe.
Children’s learning in play-based contexts is supported by teachers promoting trusting and respectful relationships. They experience the stories and symbols of diverse cultures and are supported by teachers to appreciate te reo and tikanga Māori. Practices such as karakia, waiata, and excursions to local maunga are regular occurrences.
Teachers provide a curriculum consistent with Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Children access meaningful opportunities to develop their oral language, and they benefit from engaging in a wide range of experiences both inside and outdoors.
Parents have regular opportunities to participate in policy review, centre events, and to engage in conversations with teachers, about their children’s learning. Children with additional learning needs enjoy positive outcomes because of teachers’ collaboration with their parents and relevant external agencies.
Recently established assessment and planning processes are focused on extending children’s learning, by teachers providing activities based on children’s interests. Teachers could evaluate the impact of this practice on outcomes for learners over time.
Relational trust among leaders and teachers enables the service values of respect, resilience, and responsibility to be enacted. A recently appointed curriculum manager is likely to support teachers to develop shared understandings about ways to document evaluation in relation to curriculum and internal evaluation processes.
Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:
To improve the extent to which assessment documentation about children’s learning reflects their identity, languages, and cultures.
For leaders and teachers to improve learning partnerships with parents through documenting their response to parents’ aspirations for children’s learning.
To build leader and teacher understanding of, and capability to do and use, evaluation to support quality learning outcomes for all children.
Before the review, the staff and management of Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre completed an ERO 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; safety checking; teacher registration; ratios)
relevant evacuation procedures and practices.
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)
24 May 2023
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Early Childhood Service Name |
Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre |
| Profile Number | 47099 |
| Location | Mangere Bridge, Auckland |
|
Service type |
Education and care service |
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Number licensed for |
75 children, including up to 24 aged under 2 |
|
Percentage of qualified teachers |
80-99% |
|
Service roll |
87 |
|
Review team on site |
December 2022 |
|
Date of this report |
24 May 2023 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, January 2019 |
|
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre is well placed to promote positive learning outcomes for children.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre is a new purpose-built centre in Mangere. It is licensed to provide care and education for 75 children, including up to 24 under two years of age. Children learn in three separate rooms specifically organised to meet the needs of the age groups. Each room has its own outdoor learning environment. The children have easy access to garden and bush areas on Mangere Mountain and other local educational settings.
The Tadpoles community is culturally and socio-economically diverse. The majority of the children are Māori or Pākehā. Pacific, Asian and other ethnicities complete the roll. Relationships, community, environment, and learning and care are at the heart of the centre philosophy. These aspects are further influenced by teachers' aspirations to grow independent children who are resilient, resourceful and reflective learners.
The centre manager and assistant centre manager lead a large teaching team of 13 qualified teachers supported by a cook, an office administrator and several unqualified staff.
This is the centre's first ERO report.
Children and their whānau are warmly greeted by teachers on arrival each morning. While parents and teachers share stories, children move off and settle into their start-of-day activities. Friendships are rekindled, and overnight experiences talked about as they venture on to new challenges.
Children know centre routines well. They freely choose to play indoors or outdoors and initiate their own play and learning, often in friendly groups. They form relationships with other children while being cared for by attentive teachers. Teachers support them in exploring aspects of literacy and numeracy, and for some older children, in learning about science and environmental sustainability.
Children under two play confidently and with enthusiasm. A high staff-to-child ratio provides good support for their play, learning and care. Teachers are patient and talk gently to children about their play and learning. Self-help is strongly promoted through the programme and centre routines. Babies and toddlers particularly benefit from the consistency of staff and the nurturing, individualised and gentle care that is sensitive to their preferences.
Children are provided with a wide variety of resources in all learning areas. There are spaces for children to develop and use their artistic, physical and social skills. They are well supported by teachers to see themselves as capable and confident learners. Children show initiative and engagement in leading their own uninterrupted learning for sustained periods. Natural and open-ended resources promote children's creativity and exploration learning opportunities.
Leaders and teachers are committed to growing the team’s bicultural knowledge. Waiata, te reo and tikanga Māori are formally incorporated into daily programmes. Increasing the integration of these into the informal parts of the programme is a next step for leaders and teachers. Strengthening bicultural practice will continue to grow as understanding deepens.
Portfolios record children's learning, and celebrate each child as a member of their family and the wider centre whānau. Relevant links are made between children's learning and Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Teachers are well placed to:
continue extending children's access to the local community
intentionally plan for improvement in outcomes for children
evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practice
include parents' and children's opinions.
The centre benefits from strong leadership. Leaders have established sound systems for monitoring and promoting centre improvement. These systems and processes contribute to the teaching team’s internal evaluation. They include teacher appraisal that is personalised for each teacher, aligns with the centre’s strategic direction, and improves individual and collective teacher professional practice.
Centre leaders agree that next steps for ongoing improvement include:
strengthening the alignment between the philosophy, strategic, and annual plans with statements of intent to further guide the centre's direction
ensuring the centre's guiding documents fully reflect the teaching approaches and valued outcomes of the learning programmes
using Te Whāriki to underpin teachers' reflections on their practices and all phases of internal evaluation.
Before the review, the staff and management of Tadpoles Early Childhood 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:
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 Tadpoles Early Childhood Centre will be in three years.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services Northern
Northern Region
31 January 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 |
Mangere Bridge, Auckland |
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|
Ministry of Education profile number |
47099 |
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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 |
75 children, including up to 24 aged under 2 |
||
|
Service roll |
92 |
||
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Gender composition |
Boys 52 Girls 40 |
||
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Ethnic composition |
Māori |
23 |
|
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Percentage of qualified teachers |
80% + |
||
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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 |
November 2018 |
||
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Date of this report |
31 January 2019 |
||
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Most recent ERO report(s) |
No previous ERO reports |
||
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.