Omaka Early Learning Centre

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 ​Omaka Early Learning Centre​ are as follows: 

2 Context of the Service 

Omaka Early Learning Centre is governed and managed by two co-owners who purchased the purpose-built service in September 2020. Since the 2022 ERO review, most of the leadership team remain in place, with some ongoing changes to the centre manager role and the teaching team. One-fifth of the roll are Māori, with a small number of children from Pacific heritages, who make up the culturally diverse learning community. 

3 Summary of findings 

Toddlers and older children experience a meaningful curriculum where they are well supported to become confident, capable learners. Teachers intentionally provide opportunities for group and individual play. The learning environment is purposefully set up to provide opportunities that foster curiosity, creativity, exploration and enable children to play well with and alongside their peers. 

Those children with oral language skills are well supported to develop their social and emotional skills. Leaders have taken steps to address the capability of teachers to provide a responsive curriculum for infants, and these are in the early stages of being put into practice. 

Aspects of te ao Māori, including te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are reflected in the daily programme. 

Assessment documentation shows children’s learning dispositions. Leaders and teachers are yet to consistently: 

• use the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum to plan and assess for learning 
• evaluate individual children’s progress over time to inform the next steps for learning 
• reflect each child’s cultures and languages. 

Collaborative internal evaluation and review of relevant aspects of the curriculum and health and safety, shows an understanding of the process. This includes some evidence of positive outcomes for children. 

Governance and management have recently prioritised development of well-informed systems for improvement. A newly devised strategic plan sets the direction to address self-identified concerns that have impacted on ongoing improvement and sustainability. This includes providing relevant professional support for leaders, building relational trust within the team and a professional growth cycle which is yet to be fully implemented. Further work is required to ensure all policies have been updated and reflect the centre’s philosophy and practices. 

4 Improvement actions 

​​Omaka Early Learning Centre​ will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning: 

• Make Te Whāriki learning outcomes clearly visible in assessment documentation to show children’s individual progress over time. 
• Build teachers’ practices to respond to infants’ individual preferences, their communication cues and gestures. 
• Implement the professional growth cycle to enable leaders and teachers to collaboratively engage in professional learning that contributes towards ongoing and sustained improvement. 

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements 

Before the review, the staff and management of ​Omaka Early Learning Centre​ 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: 

• 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; safety checking; teacher registration; ratios) 
• 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. 

6 Actions for Compliance 

ERO identified the following areas of non-compliance: 

• Ensuring earthquake drills are carried out with children in the infants and toddlers spaces on an, at least, three-monthly basis and having evidence of how evaluation of relevant emergency drills across the service has informed the annual review of the service’s emergency plan. 

Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Centres 2008, HS8. 

​​The service has provided​ ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliance: 

• Ensuring equipment that could fall or topple and cause serious injury or damage is secured (HS6). 
• Ensuring sleeping infants are checked for warmth, breathing, and general wellbeing (HS9). 

7 Recommendation to Ministry of Education 

ERO recommends the Ministry follows up with the service provider to ensure the non-compliance identified in this report is addressed. 

Patricia Davey 
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE) 

​​26 July 2024​ 

8 About the Early Childhood Service