Taranaki Free Kindergarten Association Incorporated

1 ERO’s Judgements

A Governing Organisation Evaluation evaluates the extent to which organisational conditions support equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners in the organisation’s services. Te Ara Poutama- indicators of quality for early childhood education: what matters most is the basis for making judgements about its effectiveness. The Governing Organisation Quality Evaluation Judgement Rubric derived from the indicators, is used to inform the ERO’s judgements about this organisation’s performance.

ERO’s judgement for Taranaki Free Kindergarten Association Incorporated is as follows:

ERO’s judgement Organisational Conditions

The organisation conditions encompass Ngā Akatoro | Domains of:

• Ngā Aronga Whai Hua | Evaluation for improvement
• Kaihautū | Leadership fosters collaboration and improvement
• Te Whakaruruhau | Stewardship through effective governance and management

2 Context of the Governing Organisation

Taranaki Free Kindergarten Association Incorporated (the association), trading as Kindergarten Taranaki, is a regional organisation comprised of 24 centre-based services. At the time of this evaluation 22 of the Kindergarten Taranaki’s 24 kindergartens were on a full licence. 

A governing board of parent representatives works with senior management to enact the organisation’s mission and vision which is currently under review. The chief executive has overall responsibility for operational support and pedagogical leadership. She works in partnership with a teaching and learning team and a senior leadership team to provide guidance and professional learning to grow the capability of teachers. 

The board has undergone significant personnel changes. They identified and sought external expertise to facilitate the development of strategic priorities.

Findings from ERO’s evaluation at the governance and organisational level included evaluating the extent to which Taranaki Free Kindergarten Association Incorporated’s strategic intentions, quality improvement systems, processes and practices support the provision of a quality curriculum at individual service level.

3 Summary of findings

Conditions supporting the association to build an effective culture include:

• high levels of relational trust across the association enabling them to work collaboratively
• a 2021 restructure clarified specific roles and responsibilities for senior management
• ongoing access to relevant internal and external professional learning and development to grow knowledge and implementation of best practice.

Improvement strategies that the association is implementing well include:

• an array of initiatives that effectively enhance the cultural identity of Māori teachers, children and their whānau
• teaching strategies that support children to build their social and emotional resilience and utilising internal and external cultural expertise to build culturally responsive capability of staff.

Kindergarten Taranaki is in the early stages of developing and implementing quality improvement systems, processes and practices at governance and management level. Once established these will enable them to effectively measure and evaluate governance, management, and teaching practices. Improvement systems process and practices that require further development include:

• improving governance practices by defining board roles, position descriptions and board induction to better support and build overall governance capability and sustainability
• extending the boards review of the vison and mission to gather parent whānau views
• within the current personnel project establish coherent performance management processes through the development of a comprehensive policy and procedure, that includes performance measures for board responsibilities, senior leaders, and the chief executive. This would facilitate shared understandings and better and transparent accountability.

Association leaders have developed an annual auditing tool, He Matapihi Whakamarama to support them to monitor compliance with the early childhood regulatory standards and licensing criteria. At the time of this review, it was in the early stages of implementation.

He Matapihi Whakamara as an audit tool, once undertaken by all kindergartens, will provide useful association wide data to determine the level of kindergarten compliance with the standards and criteria. This should help the organisation to promptly identify and address any issues and potential non-compliance with regulatory standards.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services

ERO visited a sample of six services to verify what Kindergarten Taranaki knows about the quality of each of the services’ learning conditions and to what extent the organisational conditions support service improvement. ERO selected the service sample in consultation with the governing organisation. At the time of the review ERO was unable to complete the full sample due to unforeseen circumstances. 

Four senior teachers share oversight of all kindergartens’ curriculum and pedagogy. A Pou Ārahi fosters te ao Māori knowledge and understanding. 

Specific strategies that are supporting learners include:

• Mana Model of Assessment for Māori Learners that promotes the development of responsive and reciprocal relationships with whānau Māori.
• agreed teaching practices developed through the Incredible Years training programme, that effectively promotes children growing social and emotional competence. 
• Te Ahu o Te Reo, and Kaupapa Māori workshops facilitated by the Pou Ārahi, that increases teachers’ and leaders’ proficiency in their use of te reo me ngā tikanga Māori relevant to the Taranaki rohe.

Most kindergartens have developed their placed-based curriculum. They are beginning to determine priorities for learning with their communities. They are yet to consider aligning these priorities to the learning outcomes from     Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum to enable them to assess children’s learning and progress in relation to these.  

5 Improvement actions

Association leaders to:

• complete the development and implementation of health and safety systems and processes, policies and procedures and build kindergarten leaders knowledge and understanding of compliance requirements that include:
  • developing and implementing regular compliance checks against policy documentation, regulatory standards and licensing criteria that help senior teachers to ascertain if each kindergarten is maintaining these requirements
  • developing expectations for reporting findings from these audits to governance.

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Kindergarten Taranaki will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning: 

• develop a governance framework to better support overall sustainability and capability which includes:
  • regularly reviewing the association’s mission and vision and strategic priorities in consultation with staff, families and whānau
  • defining board roles and position descriptions including developing an induction process.
• establish a performance management process for senior leaders which includes:
  • job descriptions with key performance measures to support greater accountability 
  • policy and procedures to guide practice and promote shared understandings. 
• implement the He Matapihi Whakamara audit tool in all kindergartens and analyse the results in relation the licensing criteria. Use this data to make decisions about targeting support for kindergartens needing additional support to meet and maintain compliance with the minimum standards as outlined in the regulatory standards and licensing criteria.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Taranaki Free Kindergarten Association Incorporated completed an ERO Governing Organisation Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist. In these documents they stated that the organisation has the systems, processes, and practices to be assured that service providers for licensed services within the organisation are meeting legal requirements related to:

• curriculum
• premises and facilities
• health and safety practices
• governance, management, and administration.

The licensed service provider/s of the sampled services listed at the end of this report also completed an ERO Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist for their service. In these documents they attested that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet legal requirements, including those detailed in Ministry of Education Circulars and other documents, related to these areas.

All early childhood services are required to promote children's health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements.

7 Next ERO Review

The next ERO review is likely to be in 14 - 18 months. ERO will visit a different sample of services at that time.

Patricia Davey
Manager of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

30 June 2023 

8 About the Governing Organisation

9 List of sampled services

All sampled services are on a full licence.

Services sampled in this evaluation: