Our Childcare and Early Learning Centre Philosophy

Our Vision

Children growing by connecting with the world around them.

Encouraging children to grow through connections. Connections with other people, connections with the environment and cognitive connections.

We have a warm and welcoming environment with a strong sense of community.
We believe in nurturing relationships built on a foundation of trust, warmth, kindness, responsiveness and respect.
We encourage your child to build reciprocal relationships with other children, their parents, caregivers, whanau, teachers and other community groups.
We collaborate with each other, with the children and parents / caregivers.

We offer a strong connection to the outdoors with a beautiful rural setting and large outdoor space where children can run around, explore, create and play.
We teach children about the environment, sustainability and food cycles through planting and harvesting their own fruit and vegetables, recycling, composting and rainwater collection.
We encourage children to enjoy time outdoors and, when appropriate, venture out in the rain.
We encourage children to handle and feed the animals and collect food waste from meals to feed the worm farm.

We acknowledge children as competent and confident learners and we encourage children to try new things, be curious, explore and persevere when faced with challenges.
We believe in a range of teaching approaches that provide opportunity for meaningful interactions, including free play and periods of guided activities by the teachers based on children’s interests and strengths.
We also see the value in teacher initiated learning through mat time where we share a range of experiences such as story time, news items, singing, music and movement.
We will be working on a transition to school programme that socialises children to the school environment and numeracy and literacy concepts.
We believe every child is unique and consider it a privilege to both teach and learn from them.