The woman regularly punched the children in the face, pulled their hair and shaved their hair as forms of punishment, and once demanded two girls shave-off their own eyebrows. She also shouted insults at them.
On one occasion one of the children was slapped, punched in the face and dragged by one ear in to a cold shower after asking where some letters from her parents were, the summary said.
When the girl was 15, she was slapped in the face after she had been sent home after being found with cannabis at school and, a year later, she was punched in the nose for seeing a boy again after being forbidden to have a relationship with him.
Oranga Tamariki declined to comment on the case until after sentencing.