Our teachers: We’re a dedicated and devoted, consistent team with a positive approach to caring for and educating your child. We see children as active participants in their learning and development and pay particular attention to their individual interests and needs.

Our environment: We have a welcoming, stimulating and nurturing environment where children are encouraged and supported in their learning. Our spacious outdoor gardens provide children with opportunities to take risks, develop problem solving skills and engage in challenging activities in a safe and supportive learning environment. Indoors there are places and spaces for your child to engage in calm and quieter areas, as well as spaces to be creative, and use their imaginations.

Learning through play: We place importance on the value play has in building important foundation skills, such as emergent literacy and numeracy, by encouraging the development of positive dispositions toward learning, like resilience, persistence, and curiosity. We have a strong focus on developing self help skills and independence in a play based child initiated setting guided by kaiako.

Cultural Diversity: We recognise and celebrate our culturally diverse community. We embrace every opportunity to immerse our children in cultural experiences with the intention of helping them develop empathy, understanding and compassion. We provide equipment, activities, resources and opportunities for cultural experiences and celebrate cultural occasions as they arise. We ask and encourage our whanau, to support us in providing these important events and to join us in our celebrations. We absolutely value the input, wisdom and skills you can impart to us.

Relationships with family and whānau. Working collaboratively supports us to gain a deeper understanding of your child and the continuity of learning between home and the kindergarten. We pride ourselves on our partnerships with parents and encourage our whānau to be a part of their children’s learning. We offer optional Home Visits soon after your child starts at kindergarten to support their transition into our learning environment, giving our tamariki the opportunity to show us who they are, what their interests might be and to give you their whanau, the opportunity to discuss your child’s progress.

Tuakana Teina: We value concept of tuakana-teina, which encourages reciprocal relationships where children and teachers play both a teaching and learning role within the learning community. Our younger children are learning from our older children and vice versa, emphasising the importance of each child’s contribution. We value reciprocal learning relationships and encourage all children to interact with and learn from each other in a safe environment.

We are situated behind Botany Downs Secondary College. We have a strong cohesive relationship with the college and are able to make use of the school fields and gymnasium at different times of the year. Our children love it when the ‘big kids’ visit Kindergarten and likewise the college students really enjoy interacting with the younger children.

Kahui Ako: We are a part of The Waipaparoa Kahui Ako (Waipaparoa Community of Learning), and as a result value our strong professional relationships with teachers from our local primary schools. We regularly work together as we develop a clear and successful process for children and their whānau as they transition from kindergarten onto school. This journey starts long before they leave kindergarten and doesn’t end until they are successfully transitioned into school.

We welcome you to come to visit us, we’d love to show you all we have to offer.