Childcare options in Drury

Young Petals is an early childhood service licensed for 30 children.

We are open 5 days a week from 7am – 6pm, excluding public holidays. We provide full day care, as well as sessional care of 3/4/6 hours a day, as per the needs of the family. We also provide the 20 ECE hours for over 3 children and WINZ subsides if needed.

We are a small knitted team of eight highly motivated staff members, including Owner Operator, Centre Manager, Sujata Patel.

We provide meals to all the children attending our care and services.

We believe in delivering a quality care to our children with more than 80% qualified staff.

Our centre is spread across three rooms-the babies room (0-2 years), toddler room (2-3.5 years), and preschool room (3.5-6 years). We work closely with our parents and whanau and strive to achieve the goals and aspirations for their children.

Our Education Programme

At Young Petals we implement the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum – Te Whāriki.  Te Whāriki is based on four principles of learning – Empowerment, Holistic Development, Family & Community, and Relationships.

These four principles provide the fundamental basis for our planning and are designed to build children’s confidence, develop positive relationships and ensure the individual needs of each child is met.

Planning/Care Groups: 

On enrolment, your child will generally bond with and choose their own primary care teacher who will be responsible for their transition; day to day care and ensuring their portfolios are kept up-to-date.  This doesn’t mean that your child will only work with that one staff member, as we all work collaboratively together.  All staff will work with all children and write learning stories on other children as this gives us a wider perspective of your child’s interests and needs.

Children’s Portfolios: 

Every child has their own special book of learning and experiences while at Young Petals.  This book belongs to your child and documents their journey of exploration and discovery, special interests and strengths.  We hope that from time to time you will contribute to your child’s portfolio, to enrich our shared understanding of children’s learning and development.  This could be done by adding photos and stories from home.  Your child’s portfolio will be sent home on a regular basis.  

Planning: 

Our staff are trained and skilled in documenting your child’s learning and development through the use of learning stories.  Learning stories are record of your child’s interests and strengths, and each story shows a snapshot of a learning experience they have enjoyed with us.  This assessment process helps us to plan and enhance their learning.  We believe it is important to celebrate the individual skills and abilities of each child’s development, providing support to revisit and practice these as many times as necessary to allow children time to develop their own theories about the world around them and their interactions within it.  Group projects support and celebrate the children’s interests within a group environment.  We believe it is important to celebrate children’s skills for initiating and maintaining enjoyable relationships with other children.  This planning is displayed around the centre so everyone can become familiar with our programme focus.  As you are your child’s primary caregiver and have the most knowledge about your child, we value and encourage your input into our planning.  For this reason staff will often document conversations they have with you, or ask you to fill in forms to get your feedback.

Our children are supported to become confident, competent self-directed learners through play based around their interests. Our children gain knowledge through play, participation and positive guidance.

Our Children’s curiosity and creativity is nurtured through the fun range of experiences provided … no two days at Playcentre are the same.

Our children develop nurturing and social skills which have lifelong benefits. Siblings attend together, allowing older children to mentor younger children and practise empathy and caring.

Our parental relationships developed through Playcentre provide support from parents and help them develop new parenting and life skills.

Our parents are actively involved in providing our children’s learning programmes. The high adult to child ratio allows a good balance for group and individual support during each session.

There is no other organisation for early childhood education and family development quite like it in the world. Thousands of kiwi children, and their parents too, have grown up with Playcentre … book in for your three visits today and come and join the fun.

Also offered at Drury Playcentre are sessions designed for 0 – 4 month old babies. At Space you and your baby will connect with other new parents and their babies to explore parenting & children’s development in a safe, facilitated environment. Your Space group will meet weekly, giving you & your baby the chance to make real connections during your baby’s first year.