How we do Akanuku | Assurance Reviews

What we focus on

In an Akanuku | Assurance Review we focus on whether your service meets and maintains the four regulatory standards and licensing criteria for:

  • Curriculum
  • Premises and facilities
  • Health and safety
  • Governance, management and administration.

We also look at how your service manages 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 certification, ratios)
  • evacuation procedures and practices for fire and earthquake.

 

What we assess your service against

Akanuku | Assurance reviews use the regulatory framework and licensing criteria to review your service.

See the regulatory framework and licensing criteria on the Ministry of Education’s website.

 

Why an Akanuku | Assurance Review will be important to you

The Akanuku | Assurance Review will confirm whether your service is meeting and maintaining licensing criteria. It will identify any compliance matters that you need to address.

It will assist you to be ready to move to an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation that focuses on improvement.

 

How we work with you during an Akanuku | Assurance Review

1.  We email you to tell you we’re doing a review

We email you about 4 weeks before to let you know we will be doing the review. Our email includes all the information you need to have available for the review.

 

2.  You prepare for the review

You’ll need to complete two tasks before the review:

  1. Send a letter to parents, whānau and kaiako telling them about the review.
  2. Send us the documents we need so we can prepare for the review. These documents help us understand the context and practices of your service.

​​​​Below are the documents you’ll need to complete these tasks, and documents that give you background information.
For centre-based services, read the following:

For home-based services:

Other documents you need include are:

  • any emails or letters from the Ministry of Education related to licensing of your service
  • your service’s philosophy statement
  • your service’s annual plan
  • an example of your recent review and evaluation.

 

3. We talk with you before we visit

The reviewer leading your review will contact you at least 2 weeks before we visit your service. You can clarify any questions you have about the review. The reviewer will discuss:

  • the Akanuku | Assurance Review process
  • a date for you to send the documents we have asked for to us
  • the date of our reviewers’ visit to your service.

 

4. We gather, record and discuss evidence when we are at your service

When we visit your service, our reviewers gather and record evidence from:

  • discussions with people involved with the service
  • observations of the curriculum in action — including teaching practice, the environment and resources
  • any additional documents.

We then consider what the evidence means to decide the findings at that point.

 

5. We discuss what we are finding with you

We discuss what we are finding with your key staff. Key staff include the service provider and anyone else responsible for taking action as a result of our review.

We discuss with you any areas we have identified where your service doesn’t meet regulatory standards or licensing criteria. 

 

6. We write our draft report

We report about the standards

The draft report includes a judgement for each of the four regulatory standards that tells you whether your service is ‘meeting’ or ‘not meeting’ the standard for:

  • Curriculum
  • Premises and facilities
  • Health and safety
  • Governance, management and administration.

If your service is meeting all these standards, the draft report may include some next steps related to the criteria in the Curriculum standard that you could work on.

We report about compliance

Our report includes information about any non-compliance. We’ll make one of the following statements:

  • At the time of the review ERO found the service was taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards
  • Since the onsite visit the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed non-compliances and is now taking reasonable steps to meet regulatory standards
  • At the time of the review ERO identified non-compliance with regulatory standards that must be addressed
  • At the time of the review ERO identified significant areas of non-compliance with regulatory standards that are an unacceptable risk to children.

Where we identify non-compliances, the report will recommend the Ministry of Education:

  • follows up with the service provider to ensure that identified non-compliances are addressed promptly; or
  • reassess the service’s licence.           

We make a recommendation about your service’s next review

ERO will then recommend that either:

  • the next review of the service is likely to be an Akarangi | Quality Evaluation; or
  • the next ERO review of the service will be in consultation with the Ministry of Education.

 

7. You give feedback on the draft report

We send you the draft report within 2 weeks of completing our review at your service.

You have 10 working days from the date we email the draft report to:

  • ask about the evidence we based our findings on
  • tell us in writing about any errors of fact
  • provide extra documents or evidence.

We’ll consider your response. If the evidence justifies a change, we’ll update the report.

 

8. We publish the report

We confirm the report and email a copy to you within 2 weeks.

We publish the report on our website 2 weeks after we email you the confirmed report.

The audience for ERO reports includes the public, parents and whānau, the Government and people in the early childhood education sector.

 

What happens after the review

You will need to work with the Ministry of Education, if your service is not meeting one or more of the regulatory standards, and we have made a recommendation to the Ministry to either:

  • follow up with the service provider to ensure that identified non-compliances are addressed promptly; or
  • reassess the service’s licence.    

 

You can give us feedback about your review

We’re interested in your experience of the review. Please take the time to complete our Akanuku questionnaire online.

Published: 31 Mar 2021
Audience:
Early learning
Education
Topics:
Early learning