BestStart Bader Street

Welcome to BestStart Bader Street, a beautiful second home for our children and families. place which is a home away from home for your child. Situated on the corner of Bader Street and Willis Ave within walking distance to Waikato Hospital, we care for children from 0-5 years old all through the year. The Education Review Office has rated us one of the top NZ childcare centres in NZ.

If you believe it, you can achieve it

Here, at BestStart Bader, we empower our children to reach their full potential by providing them with opportunities to try new things each day. We challenge children to take risks and to not be afraid to fail.

Our highly qualified and experienced teachers  love supporting children in wonderful learning journey. We are here to empower our children to develop a love for learning. It's about not doubting their skills and knowing what they are capable of. It's with their achievements, big or small, that they develop their confidence. Showing children, we believe in them, empowers them for school and later in their life.

At BestStart Bader, we support children to develop their skills through play-based learning. This is where children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. Play is much more than fun and games. At BestStart Bader, play based activities and opportunities create a love for learning, hence children will enjoy learning throughout their life.

Whanaungatanga (Relationships) provide the foundations of everything we do here. We acknowledge everyone’s unique culture, and our teachers take the time to understand what that is, which opens pathways for respect and reciprocal relationships. Children learn through meaningful, positive relationships with people, places, and things. 

Each member of our team dedicates time to ensuring they build trusting relationships with families and their children. Our routines, activities and daily running of our curriculum is designed around each child’s needs, current interests, and passions.

We engage frequently in cultural celebrations and whanau evenings with our children and families, and these are a significant part of our programme and centre culture. We understand that new knowledge can grow out of shared learning experiences, thus we invite families to share their knowledge, culture and skills with our teachers and children at our centre.

It gives us a boost to know how children learn and our integral role in supporting their learning. As educators, we believe in taking a step back and allowing children to solve problems, even as babies. This will go a long way toward helping them navigate the world on their own. Instead of just dropping the puzzle shape in for them, for example, we can verbally guide them, allowing them to figure it out themselves. We develop individuals who are proud of themselves and strive to achieve their goals through perseverance and determination.

At BestStart Bader we have strong Community connections - We support children’s learning and development by going on regular local excursions out in our community to support our children’s current interests.

We work alongside the Healthy Heart Foundation and provide nutritious food for our children. We have a cook who provides fresh, nutritious, and delicious meals everyday including breakfast, lunch, and morning and afternoon tea, which is all included in the childcare fee depending on your child’s hours.

Who is BestStart?

BestStart is for families who want more from early-childhood education. Safe, nurturing and educationally focused, we’re committed to growing caring people with curious minds.

Together we teach, learn and nurture.

Our vision is to work in partnership with families, whanau and communities to enable children to achieve their learning potential.

Ko tō mātou tirohanga hei mahi ngātahi i te taha o ngā whānau me ngā hāpori, kia āwhinatia ngā tamariki, kia tū pito mata ai rāatou, hei rangatira mō āpōpō.

We are committed to being a progressive and responsive leader in early-childhood education. We do this by enhancing our services, investing in our people, developing our support structure and continuously improving the educational outcomes and experiences of our children, families and the communities we serve.

Some facts:

• We’re licensed to educate and care for 15,000 full-time children daily.
• 18,000 families use BestStart services annually.
• We have over 270 centres nationwide located from Whangarei to Invercargill.
• Each centre is managed by a Centre Manager who is supported by a local Area Manager. This gives our centre teams ongoing quality training and support.
• Te Whāriki, the world-wide acclaimed national early childhood education curriculum, is used in all centres.
• We have over 4500 permanent teachers nationally. Over 90% of our permanent teaching staff are either fully qualified with a diploma or bachelor of teaching (ECE) or higher, or are in training. These figures are very high by national standards within the ECE sector.
• We provide a two-year Advice and Guidance Programme for all recently certified teachers, providing further mentoring and training. This gives strong support for teachers from provisional registration to full teacher registration with the NZ Teachers Council.
• We regularly spend around $4 million on teacher training per annum.

We’re for children

At our heart is our commitment and passion for children. Central to this belief is our focus on the holistic development of children. We support children to explore the world around them, learning through relationships, creating a love of learning in an ever-changing world. Exploration, friendship and fun are part of the journey.

We’re for good

BestStart is a registered charity owned by the Wright Family Foundation. We support initiatives and programmes within BestStart and the wider early-childhood education sector (ECE) that support good outcomes for all children. We do this because we want to make a positive difference to the lives of all children.

Innovation leads us

At BestStart, innovation guides our thinking. We advocate positive change for learners through our research and practice. We’re proud to be thought leaders within ECE, openly challenging ourselves to think differently to provide the best for our children, families and staff.

We’re responsive

Our centres reflect their children, staff and communities. We celebrate individuality, uniqueness and diversity, encouraging a spirit of empathy, understanding and collaboration. Through our responsive relationships and our curriculum, we support learners to choose their own path.

Our people matter

At BestStart people come first. When we grow and develop our people, everyone benefits. We strive for whakamana/empowerment, nurturing a culture of excellence with engaged, talented professionals. Their commitment, skill and passion light our way.