Our Teina Programme for Infants and Toddlers
Our Teina programme philosophy is inspired by the principles of gentle care within respectful relationships advocated by Magda Gerber and the RIE/Pikler approach which we have adapted to a New Zealand context through incorporation of Te Whāriki, the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum, and Māori perspectives and values.
- We will build a strong relationship with you, as their whānau, as we believe that family are the most important people in a child’s life. We like to learn about your culture and values as this helps us to support your child’s learning.
- We will work closely with you to provide a supportive settling process tailored for you and your child. Depending on the child’s age, previous experiences, and whānau availability, the settling process can take anything from a few weeks to several months.
- We will ensure that your baby has a primary caregiver to establish a stable trusting relationship with and a secondary caregiver for times when the primary caregiver is not available e.g. lunch breaks, leave.
- We will seek to follow your child’s routine from home as much as possible when they come into the Centre. To support this, we will sit down with you to learn about your baby’s routines for sleep, feeding, etc and their culture and relationships before they start with us.
- We see routine care times as valuable opportunities to build the relationship between teacher and child, for example, talking your child through a nappy change or giving your baby full attention during a feed.
- We will invite your child to participate in key caregiving moments (such as a nappy change or kai) and wait for their response, which may be non-verbal, such as lifting arms to be picked up.
- We will allow your baby to grow and develop at their own pace – by giving them free, unrestricted movement. We will provide a stimulating, warm and responsive environment to support their natural learning process.
- We will provide your child with as much access to the outside environment as possible, to enable learning about the natural environment and to give them the opportunity to move freely and spontaneously. This includes excursions out into our local community.
- We provide an environment rich in language and early learning opportunities in literacy, numeracy and science. Reading books, moving to music, learning waiata, hiding inside boxes, baking or discovering a bug in the garden all provide important foundations to future academic success.
- Your child will have opportunities to learn about our bi-cultural heritage through Māori legends, waiata (songs), karakia (prayers), concepts such as manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, Matariki celebrations and the everyday use of te reo Māori.
- Your child’s learning journey with us will be documented in their ‘Profile Book’, available in hard copy and through a secure online portal. This is where the teachers will share learning stories, samples of art work and other significant events. We encourage you to participate and contribute to this process.
- We will work with you to determine when your child is ready to start transitioning visits to the Tuakana (Pre-school) Programme and we will keep communicating with you through the transition process to support a successful transition.
Our Tuakana Programme for 2 – 5 year olds
Our Tuakana programme philosophy is based on Te Whāriki, the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum, and Māori perspectives and values. We blend these foundations with inspiration from the ‘Reggio-Emilia’ approach to learning.
- We will build a strong relationship with you, as their whānau, as we believe that family are the most important people in a child’s life. We like to learn about your culture and values as this helps us to support your child’s learning.
- We will work closely with you to provide a supportive settling process tailored for you and your child. Depending on the child’s age, previous experiences, and whānau availability, the settling process can take anything from a few days to several weeks.
- We will develop trusting relationships with your child, so that they feel secure and comfortable to participate in learning activities, take risks, and build friendships with their peers.
- We will use positive behaviour guidance strategies will all children, fostering their dignity, their ability to self-regulate, and their ability to make positive choices for themselves. Our teachers have completed Incredible Years Positive Behaviour Guidance training.
- We will foster your child’s independence and self-confidence by encouraging self-care and responsibility, for example, by serving themselves at meal times, making choices about their play, and cleaning up after themselves.
- Teachers will plan for individual and group learning based on whānau input as well as insightful observations of the children, their interests, and learning dispositions. Teachers will seek out both children’s voices and whānau voices to interpret and plan for learning.
- Your child’s learning journey with us will be documented in their ‘Profile Book’ – available in hard copy and through a secure online portal – where the teachers will share learning stories, samples of art work and other significant events. We encourage you to participate and contribute to this process.
- We will provide your child with as much access to the outside environment as possible, to enable learning about the natural environment and to give them the opportunity to move freely and spontaneously. This includes excursions out into our local community.
- We provide an environment rich in language and literacy, numeracy and science learning opportunities. Creating art works, moving to music, imagination play, swinging on monkey bars, baking, planting sunflowers, and shaping play dough all provide important foundations to future academic success.
- Your child will have opportunities to learn about our bi-cultural heritage through Māori legends, waiata (songs), karakia (prayers), concepts such as manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, Matariki celebrations and the everyday use of te reo Māori.
- We will prepare your child for school. We will ensure that they have strong foundations in self-care, independence, self-regulation and self-confidence as well as familiarity with foundation concepts in literacy, maths, and science.
Enrol with us today!
We provide an environment, resources and experiences that foster children’s natural love of learning and which support their social, emotional, physical and intellectual development.