14 Springs Road, East Tamaki, Auckland
View on mapHome2Grow Childcare
Home2Grow Childcare
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 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 Home2Grow Childcare are as follows:
Outcome Indicators(What the service knows about outcomes for learners) |
Whakaū Embedding |
Ngā Akatoro Domains |
|
Learning ConditionsOrganisational Conditions |
Whāngai Establishing Whakaū Embedding |
2 Context of the Service
Home2Grow Childcare is one of three networks under the same ownership. The service provider and coordinator are qualified teachers and work together to support educators and children. All educators in this network have an early childhood qualification. More than half the children attending are Indian and a third have Pacific heritages.
3 Summary of findings
Children of all ages have formed positive and caring relationships with educators and the coordinator. Children's learning records show that infants and toddlers receive individualised and nurturing care. New children and families are carefully matched with educators. They are encouraged to settle into the home environments at a pace that is responsive to their individual needs.
Home environments often reflect the cultures of the children attending. The coordinator and educators promote the use of children's home languages, along with basic te reo Māori. Aspects of tikanga Māori are integrated into educators’ daily practice.
Together, educators and the coordinator maintain records of learning for each child. Individual and group assessments show children’s participation in a good range of activities and experiences that promote their exploration and learning.
Educators have made good progress in achieving appropriate qualifications to guide children’s learning. They observe children’s everyday activities and plan experiences to extend their individual and group learning. Parents' aspirations and expectations for their children are integrated into curriculum planning.
Leadership across the service promotes a positive organisational culture based on relational trust and respect. There are regular opportunities for the coordinator and educators to grow their practice.
An annual plan and a strategic plan suitably guide service operations. Recent developments to support internal evaluation are contributing to improvements. Using internal evaluation processes to monitor the achievement and the impact of strategic goals could help leaders identify how improvements have positively impacted on children’s learning.
4 Improvement actions
Home2Grow Childcare will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:
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Strengthen engagement with bicultural practices across the organisation.
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Use internal evaluation findings to monitor progress towards strategic goals for ongoing improvement and equity.
5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements
Before the review, the staff and management of Home2Grow Childcare 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:
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curriculum
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premises and facilities
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health and safety practices
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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:
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emotional safety (including positive guidance and child protection)
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physical safety (including supervision; sleep procedures; accidents; medication; hygiene; excursion policies and procedures)
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suitable staffing (including qualification levels; safety checking; teacher registration; ratios)
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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.
Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki
25 January 2023
6 About the Early Childhood Service
Early Childhood Service Name |
Home2Grow Childcare |
Profile Number |
45288 |
Locatio |
East Tamaki, Auckland |
Service type |
Home-based service |
Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 |
Service roll |
42 |
Review team on site |
October 2022 |
Date of this report |
25 January 2023 |
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review, December 2020 |
Home2Grow Childcare
1 Evaluation of Home2Grow Childcare
How well placed is Home2Grow Childcare to promote positive learning outcomes for children?
Not well placed |
Requires further development |
Well placed |
Very well placed |
Home2Grow Childcare needs to ensure that safety checking systems meet requirements.
ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.
Background
Home2Grow Childcare is one of three home-based education and care networks owned by Home2Grow Limited. Educators provide programmes in their homes for up to four children at a time. Most of the children enrolled in this network are of Indian heritage. Some of the educators are children's grandparents.
The service is led by an owner/managing director, who works collaboratively with visiting teachers, administrators, educators and whānau. The director and visiting teachers are registered teachers. The two visiting teachers in this network are Indian. They support educators to plan educational programmes for children and monitor health and safety provisions.
ERO's 2017 review identified that the service provided a culturally responsive curriculum. ERO recommended that the alignment between strategic goals, appraisal and internal evaluation processes be strengthened. ERO also noted that visiting teachers could better document how they guide educators' practice.
This review was part of a cluster of two reviews in the Home2Grow organisation.
The Review Findings
A collaborative vision and philosophy guide service operations and practices. Programmes in homes are based on Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. The director, visiting teachers and educators have sustained an organisational culture that values and affirms the knowledge and experiences children and their whānau bring to the service.
Assessment records show that visiting teachers and educators know infants, toddlers, young children and their whānau well. Whānau are invited to share their aspirations and goals for their children's learning. Educators and visiting teachers work with whānau to develop shared understandings about the value of learning through play. Visiting teachers and educators use appropriate strategies and resources to support children's learning.
Positive approaches to help educators recognise children's interests and dispositions are evident. Educators reflect on the quality of education and care they provide for children. The visiting teachers support educators to undertake an early childhood qualification. They work individually with educators to help them put their new learning into practice.
Efficient governance and management systems guide service operations. The director recognises the importance of maintaining consistent systems across all three networks. To improve current practices, the director and visiting teachers could more closely monitor the implementation and recording of health and safety systems.
Key Next Steps
Key next steps are to:
- support educators to record children's learning and progress
- respond to and regularly revisit the aspirations parents have for their children's learning.
Management Assurance on Legal Requirements
Before the review, the staff and management of Home2Grow Childcare completed an ERO Home-based Education and Care 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.
Action for compliance
ERO identified an area of non-compliance relating to ensuring that educators and educator family members are safety checked in accordance with the Children's Act 2014.
Education and Training Act, 2020, 25.
Recommendation
ERO recommends the Ministry of Education follows up with the service provider to ensure that the
non-compliance identified in this report is addressed promptly.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services Northern
Northern Region
17 December 2020
The Purpose of ERO Reports
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.
2 Information about the Home-based Education and Care Service
Location |
East Tamaki, Auckland |
||
Ministry of Education profile number |
45288 |
||
Institution type |
Homebased Network |
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Licensed under |
Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 |
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Number licensed for |
80 children, including up to 80 aged under 2 |
||
Service roll |
75 |
||
Standard or Quality Funded |
Standard |
||
Gender composition |
Boys 33 |
||
Ethnic composition |
Indian |
61 |
|
Number of qualified coordinators in the network |
2 |
||
Required ratios of staff educators to children |
Under 2 |
1:2 |
|
Over 2 |
1:4 |
||
Review team on site |
September 2020 |
||
Date of this report |
17 December 2020 |
||
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review |
August 2017 |
|
Education Review |
December 2013 |
3 General Information about Early Childhood Reviews
ERO’s Evaluation Framework
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:
Pou Whakahaere – how the service determines its vision, philosophy and direction to ensure positive outcomes for children
Pou Ārahi – how leadership is enacted to enhance positive outcomes for children
Mātauranga – whose knowledge is valued and how the curriculum is designed to achieve positive outcomes for children
Tikanga whakaako – how approaches to teaching and learning respond to diversity and support positive outcomes for children.
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 the draft methodology for ERO reviews in Home-based Education and Care Services: July 2014
ERO’s Overall Judgement
The overall judgement that ERO makes will depend on how well the service promotes positive learning outcomes for children. The categories are:
- Very well placed
- Well placed
- Requires further development
- Not well placed
ERO has developed criteria for each category. These are available on ERO’s website.
Review Coverage
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.