Education Angels 2

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 Education Angels 2 are as follows:

2 Context of the Service

Education Angels 2 is one of nine networks owned under the same ownership. An operations manager works alongside the owner to oversee governance and curriculum. Visiting teachers work across the Auckland licences to support the delivery of the programme. The majority of educators are the children’s grandparents.

3 Summary of findings

The homebased nature of this service provides children with an opportunity to engage with educators who speak their home language. As a result, children’s sense of belonging is well promoted.

Early literacy concepts for infants and young children are evident in some of the service’s documentation. Children’s interests and dispositional learning are identified by educators and visiting teachers. The service is beginning to explore the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum. Children’s assessment records do not yet consistently use the learning outcomes to support intentional teaching and measure children’s learning.

While the use of some basic te reo Māori is incorporated into some children’s assessment documentation, te reo Māori and tikanga Māori is not yet consistently implemented into the daily curriculum. Service leaders have self-identified that te ao Māori could be made more visible within curriculum documentation and the learning environment.

There are regular opportunities for parents and whānau to contribute to the design and delivery of the curriculum. The current internal evaluation focus on the implementation of a multicultural curriculum has supported the team to seek the voice of parents. They are not yet consistently and purposefully using the information provided to inform planning for individual children.

There is a useful system for internal evaluation which focuses on improvement. A shared understanding of this process is yet to be built. Leaders now need to build on the capability and collective capacity within the team to do and use evaluation for both accountability and improvement functions.

Leaders are focused on setting clear expectations for the team. This is supported by leaders who work with both visiting teachers and educators to identify goals and provide access to professional learning. As a result, the conditions which enable relational trust and foster collaboration are being built.

4 Improvement actions

Education Angels 2 will include the following actions in its Quality Improvement Planning:

• Improve the extent to which children’s assessment records show their learning progress in relation to the outcomes in Te Whāriki.
• Leaders to support visiting teachers to grow their capability to do and use evaluation for both accountability and improvement functions.

5 Management Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the staff and management of Education Angels 2 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 Compliance

During the review, the service provided ERO with evidence that shows it has addressed the following non-compliances:

• Hazards to the safety of children are eliminated, isolated or minimised.

Licensing Criteria for Home-based Education and Care Services 2008, HS11.

Patricia Davey
Director of Early Childhood Education (ECE)

7 August 2024

7 About the Early Childhood Service