Next Generation Birkenhead

Education institution number:
46047
Service type:
Education and Care Service
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
52
Telephone:
Address:

76 Birkenhead Avenue, Birkenhead, Auckland

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Next Generation Birkenhead

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 Next Generation Birkenhead are as follows:

Outcome Indicators

(What the service knows about outcomes for learners)

Whakaū Embedding

Ngā Akatoro Domains

 

Learning Conditions
Organisational Conditions

Whakaū Embedding

Whakaū Embedding

2 Context of the Service

Next Generation Birkenhead is one of four family owned and operated centres. The owner and the area manager are qualified early childhood teachers. They lead a team of nine qualified teachers and four unqualified staff. The service has longstanding relationships with families and the community. A range of ethnicities attend the service.

3 Summary of findings

The curriculum supports children to become independent and socially confident. Early literacy, particularly oral language, art, mathematical concepts and sensory play are integrated into learning experiences. Opportunities are carefully considered by teachers for children to revisit learning, which contributes to their sense of belonging.

Leaders and teachers have created environments and use teaching strategies that support children to engage in the curriculum. These include:

  • displays of children’s artwork and cultural artefacts

  • modelling the use of te reo Māori

  • promoting and supporting children to build and maintain relationships between older and younger children

  • encouraging children to take risks and challenge themselves.

Infants and toddlers are empowered by teachers to make decisions and choices. Building trusting relationships between teachers and these young children is a priority. Their curriculum promotes learning through sensory play experiences.

Teachers successfully use children’s viewpoints and parent aspirations for their child’s learning to guide individual planning. Making learning more visible and intentional to support continuity of children’ learning, and evaluation of assessment and teaching and learning practices over time is required.

Teachers build shared understanding of good practice by attending professional learning and receiving ongoing mentoring from leaders. In-depth, critical teacher reflections on what worked well and what did not against indicators of effective practice is yet to be fully embedded. This evaluation would enable teachers to measure and evaluate outcomes for all learners.  

The leadership structure includes everyone taking ownership and building collective capacity. Staff wellbeing is thoughtfully considered by leaders. There is alignment between the centre’s philosophy, strategic goals and staff individual learning goals. Leaders carefully select and recruit quality teachers, which supports low turn-over of staff and sustained relationships with parents and whānau.

4 Improvement actions

Next Generation Birkenhead will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

  • Teachers to make learning more visible in assessment practices, identify intentional teaching strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies to support continuity of children’s learning over time.

  • Leaders and teachers to further build evaluation processes, by determining effective practice indicators and deepening their reflections to focus on what worked well, what did not work so well and for whom. This would enable them to better evaluate the impact of the curriculum and teaching practices on all learners.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Next Generation Birkenhead 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:

  • 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.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

7 September 2022 

6 About the Early Childhood Service

Early Childhood Service Name

Next Generation Birkenhead

Profile Number

46047

Location

Birkenhead, Auckland

Service type

Education and care service

Number licensed for

50 children, including up to 20 aged under 2

Percentage of qualified teachers

80-99%

Service roll

55

Review team on site

June 2022

Date of this report

7 September 2022

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review, June 2018; Education Review, August 2014

Next Generation Birkenhead - 11/06/2018

1 Evaluation of Next Generation Birkenhead

How well placed is Next Generation Birkenhead to promote positive learning outcomes for children?

Not well placed

Requires further development

Well placed

Very well placed

ERO's findings that support this overall judgement are summarised below.

Background

Next Generation Birkenhead is one of three family owned and operated centres in the local area. It provides full day education and care for up to 50 children, including 20 who are under 2 years of age. The owners have longstanding relationships with many families in the local community and have well established links with local and national education services and organisations.

Children up to two years of age are cared for in the main villa, which has been purposefully refurbished to meet their needs. The older children are catered for in a modern studio building at the back of the property. The two areas are linked by a shared outdoor space where children play together. The centre's philosophy states that teachers foster a home-like environment where children can feel confident, nurtured and secure, and that they respect families' values and aspirations.

The leaders of Next Generation Birkenhead have made progress in addressing the suggested next steps for the services recommended in the 2014 ERO report. These included developing self review, bicultural practice, curriculum leadership and consistency of teaching practices. Leaders have used new staff appointments and delegations to promote ongoing improvement. They are now focused on strengthening the delivery of a bicultural curriculum, as outlined in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.

The Review Findings

Children and their families are warmly welcomed and settle well into the centre. They experience a caring environment where they are valued. Teachers know the children well, respond to the needs of individual children with sensitivity, and engage respectfully with them. Children demonstrate a strong sense of belonging and ownership of their environment. Families have good opportunities to learn about what their children do at the centre and about how these activities are supporting their learning.

Infants and toddlers experience very high quality nurturing care. They have close, affectionate relationships with teachers. Children have very good opportunities to develop physical capabilities, using the outdoors for exploration. Teachers interact well with children, listening to them and asking questions in ways that help develop their early language and learning.

The centre aims to provide a holistic curriculum that promotes children as socially competent, critical thinkers, and drivers of their own interests leading to a love of learning. These features are evident in the programme in action. Children are keen inquirers, freely explore stimulating and attractive environments. They have opportunities to play for sustained periods of time and play alongside each other respectfully and confidently, enjoying each other's company.

The curriculum is well managed. Teachers have made good progress in learning about and beginning to incorporate Te Whāriki 2017 into their assessment practices. Teachers write learning stories that identify children's development, including their dispositions for learning. They are now ready to use this information more directly to inform their programme planning and evaluations. Teachers are also well placed to continue their progress in enhancing bicultural aspects of the programme and in supporting Māori children to become strong in their identity as Māori.

Leaders are committed to ongoing professional learning, are prepared to be reflective, and seek opportunities to grow young leaders. Recent professional learning for teachers has influenced their practice and enhanced learning outcomes for children. Leaders initiate national and international professional learning opportunities. The centre's participation in the Beachhaven-Birkdale Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL) reflects a commitment to local learning pathways for children.

The centre is well managed. Regular appraisal supports teachers to build their professional practice. Policies are regularly reviewed and self review processes promote improvement. A useful next step is to establish specific outcome orientated annual goals that can provide the basis for actions, and can be used to measure and evaluate progress.

Key Next Steps

Centre leaders agree that next steps include strengthening internal evaluation by:

  • measuring progress against specific goals for developing the bicultural curriculum

  • deepening the level of evaluative thinking that is apparent in the centre's internal evaluation, curriculum planning and inquiry processes

  • asking precise evaluative questions to guide internal evaluation

  • strengthening the focus of evaluation on outcomes for children and the impact of teaching.

Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Next Generation Birkenhead 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:

  • 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.

Next ERO Review

When is ERO likely to review the service again?

The next ERO review of Next Generation Birkenhead will be in three years.

Julie Foley

Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)

Te Tai Raki - Northern Region

11 June 2018

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 Early Childhood Service

Location

Birkenhead, Auckland

Ministry of Education profile number

46047

Licence type

Education & Care Service

Licensed under

Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008

Number licensed for

50 children, including up to 20 aged under 2

Service roll

67

Gender composition

Boys 37 Girls 30

Ethnic composition

Māori
Pākehā
other

4
61
2

Percentage of qualified teachers

80% +

Reported ratios of staff to children

Under 2

1:5

Meets minimum requirements

Over 2

1:8

Better than minimum requirements

Review team on site

April 2018

Date of this report

11 June 2018

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review

September 2014

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 ERO’s Approach to Review in Early Childhood Services.

ERO’s Overall Judgement and Next Review

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:

  • Very well placed – The next ERO review in four years
  • Well placed – The next ERO review in three years
  • Requires further development – The next ERO review within two years
  • Not well placed - The next ERO review in consultation with the Ministry of Education

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.