BestStart Motutaiko Street

BestStart Motutaiko Street is a high quality childcare centre located close to Taupo’s town centre. We provide care and education for children aged 3 months to 6 years. We're open all year round from 7.30am to 5.30pm and offer a variety of session times half days, school days and full days to cater to your needs.

Support for success, Tautoko kia eke

We work closely with our families to create a learning environment where children feel safe, curious to learn, confident to try new things, have persistence to try again and take pride in their success.

At BestStart Motutaiko your child will be in the very best care with our excellent team of friendly, caring and dedicated teachers who are committed to providing quality care and education. We've been rated one of the top childcare centres in New Zealand by the Education Review Office so you can be confident that your child will receive the very best support for success.

A sense of pride - Supporting each child to succeed and providing them with the skills and resources to do this is our vision. There is nothing more exciting as a teacher or parent than seeing a child accomplish a skill that they have been working hard at achieving. The smile, laughter and sense of pride is priceless.

Partnerships - We recognise that you and your whanau are your child’s first teachers and we create open and positive relationships with families to support each child’s learning and development. Parental involvement is always welcomed, and we value our partnerships with whanau, both within the centre and on Storypark. When we work and learn together our children feel supported, confident, and ready for success. 

Specialised learning - Through collaboration with families, observations, and communication we create individual learning goals that are tailored to support each child's success. Children have an individual portfolio to show evidence of how they learn through play experiences. 

Leading their learning - Children have opportunities to join in on planned activities as well as discovering their own spontaneous moments of learning. Children's interests are supported and extended by our skilled teachers. They are encouraged to investigate and explore and challenge themselves. All this works together to create a curiosity and passion for life-long learning.

Learning spaces - We have two specialised age-based rooms to provide the most meaningful, intentional, and stimulating environment for each child. Children ‘learn by doing’ and here learning is encouraged through play and a fun-filled environment.

In our Titoki Room for children under two years old, our Primary Care system enables us to develop trusting relationships with tamariki and their whanau. We get to know them on a personal level rather than just a kaiako/whanau level. We are then able to recognize tamariki interests and development and put in place strategies and learning experiences to support these, based on what we know about each whanau background.

This Primary Care approach is followed through when our tamariki transition to the Motutaiko Room for children over two years old. Here our preschoolers are assigned key teachers to continue with maintaining their Mana Atua (sense of well-being), Mana Whenua (sense of belonging), Whanaungatanga (sense of family connection), and their learning development.

We invite you to meet our team of friendly teachers and see how we extend, support and educate the children in our care.

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.