Edubase Limited

1 ERO’s Judgements

A Governing Organisation Evaluation evaluates the extent to which organisational conditions support equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners in the organisation’s services. Te Ara Poutama- indicators of quality for early childhood education: what matters most is the basis for making judgements about its effectiveness. The Governing Organisation Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this organisation’s performance. 

ERO’s judgement for Edubase Limited is as follows:

ERO’s judgement Organisational Conditions 

The organisation conditions encompass Ngā Akatoro | Domains of:

• Ngā Aronga Whai Hua | Evaluation for improvement
• Kaihautū | Leadership fosters collaboration and improvement
• Te Whakaruruhau | Stewardship through effective governance and management.

2 Context of the Governing Organisation

Edubase Limited provides home-based education and care throughout New Zealand. The privately owned organisation operates four brands- Kids at Home, Home Grown Kids, Gingerbread Cottage, and Wild Things. At the time of this evaluation, all 17 home-based networks were on a full licence. The brands share governance, systems and processes and are assisted by a senior leadership team that has remained consistent over a number of years. This team is made up of teaching and learning managers, business development and financial managers, administration support and the organisation director. The senior leadership team hold ultimate responsibility for operations and curriculum leadership of the organisation.

Over the last two years the organisation has acquired further homebased networks. An additional role in teaching and learning support has been created in the senior leadership team to better support the increased geographical spread of these networks and homes. The scope of this role is still being established.

Each network is led by a qualified visiting teacher who work collectively in regional clusters. While visiting teachers are not part of the senior leadership team, they take leadership responsibility for their networks through oversight of the daily operations and recruitment of educators. They contribute their perspectives about curriculum development initiatives to the senior leadership team. 

Findings from ERO’s evaluation at the governance and organisational level included evaluating the extent to which Edubase Limited’s strategic intentions, quality improvement systems, processes and practices support the provision of a quality curriculum at individual service level.

3 Summary of findings

As the organisation has expanded, senior leadership and governance have maintained a broad vision and mission aimed to provide positive conditions that support the wellbeing of children and adults.

Senior leaders have prioritised the development of a range of systems and processes to build consistency of practice across all the networks within the organisation. These include:

• clear expectations for implementing policies, procedures, staff and educator induction 
• building staff understanding of compliance with regulatory requirements
• the use of online systems across the four brands to support visiting teachers and educators to meet and maintain regulatory requirements, which are yet to be fully implemented.

The leadership team work well together and have a clear focus on building and maintaining transparency in their work with visiting teachers and educators. They have indicated a redefinition of key roles in their leadership team is timely as part of their strategic plan. This has not yet been actioned.

Leaders’ knowledge and use of internal evaluation as a process for ongoing improvement is in the early stages of development. A new policy and procedure to guide internal evaluation has been established to support practice at leadership and network level. Parent and whānau views are sought; however, it is not clear how their views contribute to decisions made about the organisation’s priorities for improvement. Establishing useful reporting processes from network level that provides senior leadership with clear data would better support decision making at governance level.

Priorities for strategic growth at senior leader level and at each level of the organisation are in the early stages of being identified. The senior leadership team have provided visiting teachers with resources aimed at developing local curricula and responding to the needs of groups of learners. These resources are in the very early stages of being used by visiting teachers.

Senior leaders recognise the role of visiting teachers in the organisation as key in the delivery of curriculum across networks. There are a range of useful initiatives implemented by the senior leadership team to support the growing capability of visiting teachers. Initiatives include:

• development of a standardised professional growth cycle framework to grow consistent professional practice for visiting teachers across the organisation
• involving visiting teachers in working groups to impact practice and new systems such as developing the internal evaluation procedure, and creating resources to promote the inclusion of te reo Māori
• curriculum resources to support planning and assessment
• a framework and guidance to build visiting teachers' capability to support educators.

While this range of initiatives have been introduced, they are not yet consistently implemented. Once embedded these initiatives should better support visiting teachers to enact a clear and consistent approach to quality teaching and curriculum delivery.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services

ERO visited a sample of nine networks to verify what Edubase Limited knows about the quality of each of the services’ learning conditions and to what extent the organisational conditions support service improvement. ERO selected the service sample in consultation with the governing organisation. 

Visiting teachers’ and educators' practices that promote positive outcomes for children include:

• relationships between visiting teachers, educators and children that support children’s emotional wellbeing
• opportunities for parents and whānau to contribute to their child’s learning through online systems and face to face communication. 

The in-home curriculum is responsive to individual children’s routines and aligns clearly with the Edubase vision where children’s wellbeing is held as central. Most visiting teachers and educators respond to children’s interests. They draw on some parent aspirations to inform planning that leads to a wide variety of experiences and activities for the age and developing capabilities of the children attending. These practices are beginning to reflect the depth and breadth of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. 

Visiting teachers in partnership with parents and whānau are yet to develop priorities for learning in the homebased context and show children’s learning over time in relation to the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki. Assessment practices are highly variable across the networks. The reflection of and response to children’s languages, cultures and identities is not yet consistent in documentation.

5 Improvement actions

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Edubase Limited will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning: 

For governance and senior leadership to establish:

• a clear strategic direction and defined priorities for the organisation
• processes for gathering a range of evidence to support quality reporting, evaluation and inform better decision making
• visiting teachers to develop priorities for children’s learning aligned to the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki in collaboration with parents and whānau. Then ensure these are reflected in curriculum design, assessment, planning and evaluation practices.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Edubase Limited completed an ERO Governing Organisation Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist. In these documents they stated that the organisation has the systems, processes, and practices to be assured that service providers for licensed services within the organisation are meeting legal requirements related to:

• curriculum
• premises and facilities
• health and safety practices
• governance, management, and administration.

The licensed service provider/s of the sampled services listed at the end of this report also completed an ERO Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist for their service. In these documents they attested that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet legal requirements, including those detailed in Ministry of Education Circulars and other documents, related to these areas. 

All early childhood services are required to promote children's health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements.

7 Actions for Compliance

During its visits to sample services ERO identified the following non-compliances:

Non-compliances 

8 Next ERO Review

The next ERO review is likely to be in 14-18 months 

ERO will visit a different sample of services at that time.

Pat Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

12 July 2024 

9 About the Governing Organisation 

10 List of sampled services

All sampled services are on a full licence.

Services sampled in this evaluation: