BestStart Manukau

BestStart Manukau located on the corner of Puhinui and Great South Roads offers a range of childcare options to meet your family’s needs. We provide care for and work with families from a multicultural, diverse community. Our center is surrounded by beautiful trees and a beautiful garden which provides a peaceful place for children to explore nature.

Where culture comes to life

If you are looking for a quality childcare centre that will work with you and your child to reach their full potential visit BestStart Manukau today and see how your child could thrive. 

Our Philosophy is based on the four principles of Te Whāriki our Early Childhood curriculum which guides our practice and is underpinned by Te Tiriti O Waitangi.

The following values guide our practice:

• Aroha/Love
• Respect/Manaakitanga,
• Empowerment/whakamana
• Relationships/whanaungatanga

Centre One caters for children from 3 months to 5 years old and provides full-day sessions from Monday to Friday.  Nutritious, freshly cooked meals are also provided. Our opening hours are from 7 am to 6 pm. 

Children under 2 (Kotare Room):  

Aroha is reflected throughout our practice in Kotare room. Our Babies are loved and nurtured in a natural and peaceful environment. Our Babies are sensitively supported by our uniquely qualified and highly experienced staff. We provide the utmost care to our Pepe.  

We offer an unhurried curriculum for our busy babies where they have time to explore and discover at their own pace. We work with families to make the transition to centre life a smooth and happy time, creating a strong bond and a setting that feels like family.  We believe in building relationships with our babies, families and our community through shared experiences and working together, which provides a sense of belonging, along with respect, safety and love, we offer a nurturing place for your child to foster the daily development of infant minds and bodies. Our babies enjoy exploring heuristic baskets. These open-ended play and opportunities allow children to explore, learn, and develop in a completely natural way. natural resources create a safe and homely place to learn and grow. Our Pepe has the freedom to explore and unfold naturally. Babies feel very safe and secure in this beautiful environment. Our covered beautiful outdoor area provides children a safe and natural area to explore.

Children over 2 (Kiwi Room): Our mixed-age room sees dedicated staff working in partnership with families and children to develop programs to engage and support the development of every child. We pride ourselves on celebrating children’s milestones, learning journeys, and cultural heritage.

We take pride in providing an environment as a place that is welcoming, aesthetically pleasing, culturally representative of the community, embraces nature, and filled with purposeful materials, that invites learning. , it is truly the third teacher. We provide open-ended resources such as loose parts to add the complexity of play. children enjoy these unique resources which provide stimulation.  By using Loose parts children enhance their creativity and help them extend their ideas and questions.

our Kiwi room children love doing science experiments. We provide an area where children can explore science and our little scientists are so eager to explore the world around them. Children are at a curious stage of life where they want to know everything about nature, technology, space, transport, and many other things about the world around them. We have an amazing team of trained and qualified teachers who facilitate a range of hands-on science experiences and experiments based on exploring the world around us with the tamariki.

We believe in instilling a love for learning in our children. our program is designed to foster a love for learning. our highly skilled teachers support children by providing “scaffolding” for learning. teachers engaged in play Watch for “teachable moments,” and be ready to help children develop new skills that build on existing skills.

The relationship is all that matters to us. we believe in working as whanau and we take pride in having a strong relationship with our children, whanau, and the wider community. Our strong community involvement is what makes us the center of choice. We have regular visits from our local librarian and emergency services people, rest home visits, participation in physical education programs, and parent evenings. We offer a Be School Ready initiative that specializes in preparing children for school life and covers literacy skills, numeracy skills, understanding the world, creativity, arts and music, sharing and relating to others, and physical and gross motor skills. We have received feedback from our families that this initiative ensures smoother transitions to school for our graduating pre-schoolers. 

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.