Swings + Roundabouts Summer 2020

ERO have changed their review approach. Instead of one review visit, they’ve split it into three: ● An Assurance Review ● A Quality Evaluation ● Innovation and Excellence The Assurance Review is focussed on compliance. It’s about the extent to which a centre is complying with the ECE Regulations and the Licensing Criteria. This is about taking the Centre Assurance Statement (CAS) and going through it with a fine-toothed comb to ensure you can demonstrate you’re getting things right. It is more intensive than before because the Assurance Review visit is the sole focus. But don’t worry, you’ve only got around 300 individual things you have to show you’re getting right every minute of every day you’re open! If there are things ERO pick up which you need to fix, they will either note these in your review report and require you to fix them within a nominated timeframe; or they will require you to fix the non-compliances and refer you to the Ministry of Education – who may take further action depending on the nature of the non- compliances (eg: health and safety). The Quality Evaluation visit comes after you’ve passed an Assurance Review. This is focussed on ERO’s 21 quality indicators, published late in 2019. This Evaluation is about how your centre demonstrates it is delivering on the government’s expectations of quality. But only the government’s expectations. Again, the sole focus of this visit is on seeing the evidence that you’re achieving the quality expectations defined in ERO’s indicators. But, if they see something glaring in the compliance area, they will revert to assurance. ERO are now starting to examine the innovation and excellence area, proposing to develop this component of their review model collaboratively with the sector. THE CHALLENGE FOR CENTRES Historically, centres could be forgiven for developing an approach toward compliance and quality improvement that focused on the next ERO review event, so lurching from one ERO review to the next and looking no further. The problem with this approach is that it fosters “shop-fronting” where a centre polishes up its presentation for the ERO event and then slips back to habit. This approach encourages an adversarial relationship between centres and reviewers and reinforces ERO’s reputation as the education police. It offers little to the value- add for the centre and little to the ongoing improvement in education and care service delivery. Further, there remain risks to the centre that compliance failure will occur between visits, in the absence of no real controls being in place. Assurance, or compliance, is about having a system in place to ensure all compliance areas are being met, and a monitoring approach to ensure that compliance is sustained, and any lapses identified quickly and resolved. Quality improvement is about being able to answer four key questions: 01. What do we do well? 02. What evidence do we have to back this up? 03. What do we need to work on? 04. What’s our plan? Most centres in my experience are able to answer questions 1 and 3 relatively easily. They struggle with 2 and 4 because we’re not good at writing things down and recognising that quality improvement is a whole-of-team activity and doesn’t rest on the manager’s shoulders only. Finally, quality improvement is about the way we work, it’s not something extra centre staff need to do on top of already busy jobs. THE CHALLENGE FOR ERO ERO face several challenges in the implementation of their new review approach: ● ERO’s Review model should be supported by a clearly defined and transparent Review approach – for both Assurance Reviews and Quality Evaluations. ● The Assurance Review is about compliance, but “sweating the little stuff” does no one any good. ERO and the Ministry of Education need to be clear about what is an absolute requirement (such as anything related to child safety) and what is still required but can be subject to a little more flexibility. ● Quality evaluation is not about re- inventing models of quality improvement. There is not one prescriptive way of “doing quality” in a centre. The focus must be on centre’s demonstrating they have an approach that works for them and that appears well founded and robust, supported by the whole team and that demonstrates improvement in the key areas of ERO’s interest. ● ERO need to ensure their reviewers have the capability to do the job. The ECE sector is too important to under- value it by sending in semi-retired school principals to review a centre. Reviewers must have familiarity with the ECE sector, preferably at a senior or management level. Those reviewers with a teaching background are highly valued, but so should those with management experience in an ECE setting. Finally, QUALITY IMPROVEMENT A CHALLENGE FOR CENTRES AND FOR ERO BY PETER REYNOLDS December 2020 { 18 }