Little Footsteps-John Street

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 Little Footsteps - John Street are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

This is one of three Little Footsteps centres. The head teacher and owner share responsibility for the day- to-day running of the centre. A quarter of enrolled children are Māori and a small number are Tongan. Since ERO’s 2021 report, there has been significant staffing changes and little progress has been made on identified key next steps. 

3 Summary of findings

Children are supported to develop social and emotional competency skills within a mixed-age setting. The outside environment is well resourced and provides challenges and opportunities for children to play both independently and in group activities. However, there are low levels of resourcing indoors. Children’s well-being is supported as teachers respond to their verbal and non-verbal cues. 

Assessment for children’s learning does not effectively support their learning progress and developing capabilities. The curriculum policy provides insufficient guidance to staff. The team has not fully explored the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, to understand them and apply them through planning and assessment. Teachers are describing what children are doing but are yet to consistently recognise and respond to children’s learning. 

The curriculum is not reflective of Māori, Pacific and children of diverse ethnicities. Parents and whānau have some opportunities to share their cultures and aspirations. However, this information is yet to be used to design and implement a curriculum that is responsive to all children’s cultures, languages and identities.

Systems and processes to support and maintain improvement require stronger implementation. Leaders identify the need to review and enact the service’s philosophy, vision, plan and priorities for improvement, in collaboration with whānau. Clear expectations of consistency and content of reporting on operations and curriculum from centre leaders to the owner requires strengthening. Appraisal and professional growth processes are yet to: 

• effectively support teachers to improve their professional knowledge
• identify the impact of new learning and intentional teaching strategies on children’s outcomes.

4 Improvement actions

Little Footsteps - John Street will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Unpack the learning outcomes from Te Whāriki and align children’s learning and progress to these through documented assessment.
• Integrate parent and whānau aspirations through planning and assessment of the curriculum.
• Leaders to fully establish and monitor a professional growth cycle that meets the Teaching council requirements.
• The service provider to regularly monitor the implementation of policies, procedures and practices and ensure the service consistently meets the regulatory standards.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Little Footsteps - John Street 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 the service curriculum respects and supports the right of each child to be confident in their own culture and encourages children to understand and respect other cultures.
• Taking positive steps to respect and acknowledge the aspirations held by parents and whānau for their children. 
• Maintaining a record of the time each child attending the service sleeps, and checks made by adults during that time.
• Implementing a system of regular appraisal.
  Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Services 2008, C6, C11, HS9, GMA7.

Since the onsite visit, the service has provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliances:

• Having evidence of how evaluation of relevant emergency drills has informed the annual review of the service’s emergency plan (HS8).
• Analysing accident/incident records to identify hazards and take appropriate action (HS12).

7 Recommendation to Ministry of Education 

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

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

26 April 2024 

8 About the Early Childhood Service