Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited

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 Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited 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

Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited is a privately owned company which operates centre-based and home-based early childhood education and care services across New Zealand. Services that are part of this organisation include:

• PORSE home-based services (not visited by ERO at this time).
• More for Kidz Foundation Trust (a sessional service).
• Rainbow Corner home-based services.
• Rainbow Corner centre-based services.

At the time of this evaluation three of the Rainbow Corner Early Learning Services were on a provisional licence. The organisation is governed and managed by a chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director. A quality assurance manager provides operational and curriculum support to centre-based services.

Findings from ERO’s evaluation at the governance and organisational level included evaluating the extent to which Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited strategic intentions, quality improvement systems, processes and practices support the provision of a quality curriculum at individual service level.

As a result of EROs early findings at governance level the focus of this evaluation transitioned to an assurance review. ERO implemented assurance reviews for the service sample which focused on compliance with the Licensing Criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care Services 2008 and the Licensing Criteria for Home-based Education and Care Services 2008.

During the onsite stage of this evaluation, The Rainbow Group of Companies Limited went into liquidation and all services were closed.

3 Summary of findings

Governance and management are yet to develop overarching systems to ensure regular monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on how well the organisation and its services are meeting regulatory and professional obligations. This relates to curriculum, health and safety, premises, human resources, finances, and administration requirements.

Strategic planning for the organisation guides business as usual with little focus on improvement planning. Strategic goals and priorities are not cohesive or clearly aligned. There is no evidence of progress towards these goals or evaluation of the impact on outcomes for learners. Review and evaluation processes are not well developed or implemented to determine if systems, processes, or practices promote improvement and equitable outcomes for all children.

The organisation has not created the conditions for staff to:

• build relational trust that allows for collaboration and sustained improvement
• provide better support for current and future leaders to build their capability through leadership strategies
• recruit, induct and retain new and existing staff using well defined teaching and learning expectations
• access local, smoothly managed administration and resourcing provision.

As a result, there has been high turnover of staff at all levels of the organisation.

Leaders are yet to collaboratively develop and enact the organisation’s philosophy, vision, and goals that give emphasis to Te Tiriti of Waitangi. There is no evidence of Māori whānau consultation to inform improvements to culturally responsive practice.

There are limited opportunities for inter-professional work with others or collaboration between services, agencies, and the wider community to support broader educational outcomes.

4 Summary of findings from visits to services

ERO visited a sample of five services to verify what Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited 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.

ERO visited two all day centre-based services, a sessional service and four educator homes to verify compliance with regulatory standards.

Most of the services have experienced a high turnover of staff and as a result have relatively new leadership and teachers. Centre-based services are supported by a newly appointed quality assurance manager. The CEO had oversight of the home-based services.

ERO found several non-compliances in the sessional service, and poor practices in the home-based services. The CEO closed the Rainbow Corner home-based services immediately after these visits.

In the centre-based services leaders and teachers reflect the cultural diversity of the service’s community. They seek ways to maintain children's connections and fluency in home language/s and cultural identities.

Teachers have access to a regular professional growth cycle process and internal online professional development programmes. The curriculum provided to children is aligned to Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum.

Effective systems for governance and management have not been established. 

Organisational conditions that need to be developed to promote positive outcomes for all children include: 

• overarching assurance and accountability processes to meet and maintain regulatory requirements
• consistent processes for all staff to understand and implement policy and procedures
• regular monitoring and reporting of compliance, including evaluation of action plans to ensure safe environments
• developing clear expectations for teaching and learning to provide an effective curriculum
• understanding and implementing evaluative thinking and processes that support improvement.

5 Improvement actions

Prior to the next ERO evaluation Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited will progress the following actions through its Quality Improvement Planning:

Organisation leaders to develop overarching systems to ensure regular monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on how well the organisation and its services are meeting regulatory and professional obligations. This relates to curriculum, health and safety, premises, human resources, finances, and administration.

Recommendation

The Ministry of Education undertakes a funding audit.

6 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

As part of this review, a representative of Rainbow Corner Group of Companies Limited 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.

During its visits to sample services ERO identified the following non-compliances. These are outlined in more detail in the Assurance Review reports for the centre-based services listed below:

Non-compliances

Patricia Davey
Director Early Childhood Education (ECE)

22 June 2023 

7 About the Governing Organisation

8 List of sampled services

All sampled services are on a full licence.

Services sampled in this evaluation: