Gisborne Kindergarten Association 

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 Gisborne Kindergarten Association 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

Gisborne Kindergarten Association is a regional organisation comprised of eleven kindergartens and one certificated playgroup. At the time of this evaluation ten kindergartens were on a full licence. A governing board of parent representatives work with the management team to enact the organisation’s vision, purpose, and guiding principles.

In 2023 an association restructure led to organisational changes, including a combined professional leader/senior teacher role, who has overall responsibility for operational support and pedagogical leadership. The professional leader and senior teacher provide guidance and professional learning to grow the capability of teachers.

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

3 Summary of findings

Relational trust is evident across all levels of the association. This is contributing to the effective implementation of operational changes with a clear focus on the wellbeing of staff, children and their whānau. 

Conditions supporting the association to build an effective culture include:

• collaborative professional networking by management that maintains positive relationships between services, agencies and the wider community 
• actively pursuing ways to promote equity of inclusion and access, and social justice for children and their whānau
• parent and whānau aspirations materially influencing the development of strategic and kindergarten priorities for children’s learning and wellbeing.

Management have identified the need to redevelop strategic priorities to guide the direction of the association following the restructure. Once determined, regular monitoring and evaluation should help the governance and management group to report on progress and effectiveness.

Improvement strategies and initiatives that the Management are implementing well include:

• a Pou Āwhina Pacific role that is building culturally responsive practice, has led to increased engagement of Pacific children, families and their communities. This initiative is yet to be evaluated to determine the impact for this group of children.
• prioritising building teachers’ knowledge and understanding of te ao Māori, promoting curriculum that effectively reflect histories, stories and places of significance to local Māori
• resourcing and management expertise effectively providing teachers with strategies to support children with additional development and learning needs.

A range of quality improvement systems, processes and practices are established and contribute to improvements within the association. These include:

• professional growth cycles aligned to priorities that improve teacher practice
• review and improvement focused developments.

An established process for review and development is in place. Leaders are yet to build a shared understanding across the association to effectively do and use evaluation for improvement. Documented systems and processes are not yet in place to enable senior teachers and kindergarten teams to make accurate judgements about the quality and effectiveness of kindergarten’s curriculum. 

Strengthening professional leader and senior teacher reporting systems and processes across the association could better support monitoring of progress, improvement and resourcing decisions aligned to strategic priorities.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services

ERO visited all of the services available on a full licence to verify what Gisborne Kindergarten Association 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. 

Following the restructure some kindergartens have undergone staffing changes. Experienced senior teachers work collaboratively alongside head teachers, promoting autonomy to develop their own ways of working with and alongside their team. 

Conditions that promote positive outcomes for children include:

• inclusive practices and individualised planning for children with additional learning needs, developed collaboratively with whānau and external agencies
• targeted approaches to implementing a localised bicultural curriculum, many with well-established connections to history, stories, and places of significance to local Māori
• intentional teaching practices that include effective partnerships between children, parents and whānau
• viewing children under the age of three as capable and competent learners and effectively supporting them to fully participate.

Specific strategies that support positive learning conditions include:

• shared understandings and implementation of the ‘Prevent, Teach, Reinforce’ programme which supports the wellbeing of children and builds social competence and emotional resilience of diverse learners
• use of ‘Learning, Language and Loving It’ programme to promote the development of oral language and communication for all children.

All kindergartens have determined with their communities ‘critical learning areas’. Some teams are yet to align these in documentation with the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, to support them in showing children's developing capabilities in relation to these outcomes. 

Pou Āwhina Pacific has worked effectively with three teams to model culturally responsive practice, building teacher capability and confidence. This role has led to increased Tongan children and families participation. Leaders plan to extend this initiative to have stronger influence on teacher practice across the association.

5 Improvement actions

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Gisborne Kindergarten Association will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning:

• develop systems and processes to provide high-quality curriculum guidance to enable reliable judgements to be made about the quality and effectiveness of curriculum provision. 
• align senior teacher visit reports to association developed indicators of quality, to better support regular, specific feedback with a focus on improvement.
• develop a shared understanding of the purpose and use of internal evaluation for ongoing improvement across the association. This includes:
• a documented process to guide internal evaluation at kindergarten and organisation level
• drawing on and analysing a range of quantitative and qualitative data to inform decision making.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Gisborne Kindergarten Association 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 Next ERO Review

The next ERO review is likely to be in 3 years.

Pat Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

12 July 2024 

8 About the Governing Organisation 

9 List of sampled services

All sampled services are on a full licence.

Services sampled in this evaluation: