Childcare options in Forrest Hill

At Smoochie McGill Early Learning we believe in providing a caring, creative environment, which encourages relationships between teachers, children, parents and whānau. Children are encouraged to investigate and follow their own interests, and teachers provide positive encouragement, build on the child’s learning through discussion, and provide supporting activities/ideas to extend the learning even further.  Teachers create respectful relationships with good communication, love and kindness.

We are based in a converted house on a quiet residential street,  giving a feeling of home away from home.  There is plenty of natural light and indoor/outdoor flow. Tui birds are frequent visitors to the trees shading our playground.  We have two rooms - the over 2s/Matariki Room with a maximum of 23 children, and the under 2s /Tui Room with a maximum of 9 children.  There are 3 teachers in each room.  We operate to the 100% qualified teachers Ministry of Education (MOE) model which means that most of our teachers are qualified and registered teachers. As our teacher to child ratio’s are often much better than the MOE’s minimum requirements, this extra staffing is provided with a mix of qualified/registered teachers, non qualified teachers, and non qualified teachers in training/student teachers.

We have an onsite chef who prepares meals each day.  A lot of planning goes into our menu, and we adapt it to make use of NZ grown seasonal produce. We use free-range meat and eggs and have one vegetarian meal each week. We avoid the use of processed meats, eg. ham and sausages. There is a Summer and Winter Menu and each season has a 4 week rotating menu.

A sibling discount of 10% is available when two or more siblings are enrolled.

Our centre does not have an extended shut down period over Christmas/New Year. We only close on statutory holidays.

When your child has been enrolled continuously for 6 months, we offer 2 weeks per year at 50% fees as Holiday Leave.

With great excitement we opened our new Forrest Hill Peekaboo centre in January 2021.

We carefully designed the centre to be a beautiful environment for your child, with green spaces, sustainable materials, rain water harvesting & solar power. We back onto a large reserve which is a lovely vista and play ground for us to enjoy.

Proudly owned and operated by local couple, Michelle & Adrian, we are committed to the childcare sector and providing excellent levels of education and care. Michelle is a board member of the Early Childhood Council.

Our initial staff will come from our existing centres as they know our philosophy and can embed this within our new centre. Our new staff will be carefully handpicked to uphold our values and high standards of quality we aim to provide.

Our centres are warm & inviting with many of our staff having long term tenure as they enjoy our approach to employment and families.

We would love to show you around our new centre as we know you will be impressed by it & the great team we have to look after your precious children.

What sets us apart...

• Brand new & fully resourced centre
• Highly experienced staff
• High teacher to child ratio
• Experienced hands on owner operator
• High quality education and care programme

Our philosophy

Peekaboo provides families in our diverse local community with a safe, stimulating, fun learning environment; where our children are loved, respected, valued and nurtured in our enriching surroundings that encourage them to realize their unique potential and to respect and embrace the differences in others. Providing good nutrition to our children is an important building block for children’s future health.

We aim for families and educators to work hand in hand to provide a healthy community within our Centre. We provide an environment that promotes physical activity and nutrition to support our children’s well being. We are committed to a genuine partnership with families/whānau and welcome the active contribution and collaboration of parents and families to their child's growth and development.

Peekaboo provides the children with various settings in which to explore, interact and gain knowledge. These areas range from our Natural garden through to teacher directed activities and learning. Our professional teaching team encourage a passion for learning and thus they establish a foundation and desire for life-long learning within the child.

At Peekaboo we embrace multiculturalism while acknowledging the unique place of Maori as tangata whenua. We provide our children with opportunities to develop knowledge and an understanding of the cultural heritages of all the children in the Peekaboo Community and both parties to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

We are proud of our reputation as an approachable, friendly, dedicated, quality, home-away-from-home environment for our children and families.