Childcare options in Bombay

Our Philosophy is: “To provide a safe, caring environment for our children to play and learn, for our whanau to find friendship and support, growing together as part of the Bombay Community”

What’s It All About?

Playcentre is a parent-run co-operative which means that the adults all contribute in some way to the running of the centre. A key difference between Playcentre and other ECEs is that parents stay with children in general sessions. The Playcentre philosophy is based on the idea of parents as the best educators for children. Our motto is “Whanau tupu Ngatahi – families growing together” and there are many opportunities for you to learn alongside your child/ren at Playcentre. We also welcome grandparents and home-based caregivers.

How Does It Work?

Sessions run from 9 am to 12noon. The group sets up together at 9 am and cleans up together from 11.30 am. We supervise and support the children’s play as a team. Play is child-initiated and Playcentre philosophy is that children learn best through free play. We bring lots of changes of clothes for children and dress for messy play ourselves. Children bring individual lunch boxes for morning tea at 10 am and we take turns to provide morning tea for adults.

General sessions (for all ages 0-6) are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9 am-12 noon.

Bumblebees (drop-off sessions for older children) are Tuesday and Thursday, 9 am-1 pm.

Termly Donation: $30 per child to attend as many general sessions per week as you wish. Under one’s are free. $40 per child per Bumblebee session attended, eg $40 per term to attend all Tuesday Bumblebee sessions.

What Will My Family Get Out Of It?

We are lucky at Bombay to have a wonderful environment, richly resourced, with lots of amazing learning opportunities for children. On top of that, we are a friendly centre that enjoys lots of social activities outside of Playcentre. Bombay Playcentre is a place where we find friendship and support as parents/caregivers as well as a place where we can spend quality time with our children.

Little Settlers is a privately owned centre by local Bombay couple Matthew and Emma Reichenbach. It is the sister centre to the very successful Little Pioneers.

Little Settlers has 2 on-site rooms within the centre; broken down into 2 sections:

• The Explorers from 0 - 2.5 years of age.
• The Trailblazers 2 - 4 years of age.

Each contain their own separate indoor/outdoor area so that there is key focus on each age group. Our outside area is colossal and promotes imagination and creativity within your child. There are lots of areas to play, explore, and investigate. We thrive on childrens interests and extend them to create investigation. 

Little Settlers is many things. We focus on challenging our children and offering them a variety of experiences with the tools to complete them. We offer a loving environment that means lots of cuddles and attention for our children so they can settle and enjoy each and every day with us.

• We are a family oriented centre and are here to support our families and our community.
• Little Settlers is a purpose designed and built centre for children aged 0 through to age 4.
• Here we provide all linen, nappies and meals, including cow’s milk.
• We have an amazing full time chef who cooks high class and nutrious meals every day.
• We serve breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and late snack.
• Water is available all day long.

About Little Pioneers...

We value the community for the child and we are focused on fostering relationships with parents, children, whanau, school and community. We understand the value this can have for a child developing a sense of belonging at school and having the confidence to move towards school.

We focus on teaching children strong foundations to go to school and feel ‘suitable’ to learn. We work hard to plan a programme that caters for our individual children and the different needs, strengths, dispositions and learning styles, as no child is the same as the next.

We understand the skills that children need to be equipped with to feel success at school and cater to this with realistic expectations of our children. We value the importance of independence and being able to manage themselves, their belongings and their environment. We support children and their families to share this value and understand the importance of this for children.

Our teaching team is familiar with the primary curriculum, so we are confident to best use our own curriculum Te Whariki to carry on through to the primary years. From this knowledge we understand the importance of oral language and being exposed to a literacy rich environment. We are very focused on developing oral language to provide the skills to take into their school environment. Our programme caters for literacy, physical development, numeracy, social, wellbeing and independence to be nurtured and developed.

We provide opportunities for children to enquire and investigate and develop their own working theories about the world. We will always believe play is the highest form of research and this is very obvious in our children’s day.

Our goal is to make it fun to learn and we learn to have fun! So all our children are excited to learn and by the time they head to school they have a thirst for lifelong learning and are ready to take on the new concepts of school