BestStart Naenae

BestStart Naenae is proud to provide awesome opportunities for children and their whanau to learn and grow with us. We're conveniently located adjacent to Rata Street School, and have recently extended our centre so we can better meet the needs of our community by caring for children aged 0 to 6.

Building supportive relationships in our community

At BestStart Naenae we embrace the diversity of our Naenae community, building meaningful connections that provide children with rich learning opportunities and create a sense of belonging for them and their whanau.

Community at heart: We’re a community focused centre and work collaboratively with our families to build trusting relationships to support them to achieve the very best outcomes for children. The established relationships we have built with other community agencies means we can provide a true wrap-around service for our whanau. We’re regularly out and about in the community, being part of what’s happening locally as well as inviting community role models into our kindy to share their knowledge with the children.

Whanau (Whanaungatanga): We value our children and whanau, providing them with a strong sense of belonging. We encourage and welcome whanau to be a part of their child’s learning journeys and encourage them to work alongside their children and teachers to provide children with quality education, care and learning outcomes.

Celebrating culture: Our team of passionate teachers, many from the Naenae community, are as diverse as the children we are privileged to spend our days with. We uphold cultural practices and inspire children to be proud of their heritage. We celebrate various language weeks alongside the local primary schools, learning cultural dances, exploring cultural foods and engaging in cultural learning experiences. We communicate using a range of languages including sign language, visual language and communication folders for children who struggle to communicate verbally.

School connections: We have close relationships and regularly visit Rata Street, Naenae Primary and St Bernadettes schools which sees our children develop the Tuakana-teina relationships between school children/older siblings and themselves. This allows the children to familiarise themselves with the school environment and supports smoother transitions to school.

Ngahere Tamariki (Children of the Forest): We offer a natural forest experience rich in learning for our four-year olds. Once a week we explore the Rata Street bush and learn about sustainability and the natural life cycles of trees, insects etc. Focusing on Kaitiakitanga, we encourage children to be guardians of the environment. This means insects, trees and bushes must be respected and unharmed.

Exciting learning opportunities happen for children all day, every day.  We provide experiences that the children are interested in, going above and beyond to extend the children’s learning and encourage them to become curious thinkers.  See some of our great learning moments in our stories below...

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.