Blossoms Educare Papatoetoe

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 Blossoms Educare Papatoetoe are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Blossoms Educare Papatoetoe is one of 12 services in the Blossoms organisation. A qualified centre manager leads a team of two additional qualified teachers and three unqualified staff. Most children attending are of Māori, Pacific and or Indian heritages. The Blossoms’ group leaders provide professional guidance and support to their services.

3 Summary of findings

Children benefit from a play-based curriculum. They show respect for the Kaupapa of their service and demonstrate a sense of belonging within their environment. Children are confident communicators who manage and express their needs and appreciate their own ability to learn. Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are intentionally woven through teacher practices and visible in the environment and children’s portfolios. Teachers focus on connection and fluency in home languages affirms children's cultural identities. 

Children have a sense of security in being able to predict what is happening next in the programme. This is supported by a well-resourced learning environment encouraging independent exploration. The importance of play for infants as a vehicle for learning is valued. Teachers provide a calm unhurried curriculum that is responsive to children’s individual preferences. Positive interactions encourage oral language development. Leaders acknowledge the need to further support staff to scaffold children’s learning throughout their daily routines. 

Leaders and teachers have regular opportunities to engage and share practice. They take personal responsibility for their own professional learning and engage in reflection and ongoing inquiry. External support is selected to provide relevant learning with the aim of integrating theory into practice. Leaders acknowledge the need to unpack the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki the early childhood curriculum for teachers to monitor children’s increasing capabilities. 

A range of systems and processes have been developed but, have yet to be fully implemented. Leaders are intentional in allocating resources to support the teaching team to do and use evaluation for improvement. As a new team, the focus has been on developing relational trust at all levels. New knowledge is shared across the wider organisation. Leaders could evaluate how well improvement actions have assisted them to realise their strategic direction, goals, and priorities for learning.  

4 Improvement actions

Blossoms Educare Papatoetoe will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Continue to build on teachers understanding of Te Whāriki (2017) learning outcomes for the use of measuring and defining children’s increasing capabilities. 
• Continue to engage in internal evaluation that monitors progress towards centre priorities and learning outcomes for children.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Blossoms Educare Papatoetoe 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.

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

6 May 2024 

6 About the Early Childhood Service