Childcare options in Helensville

Nestled amongst farmland, and overlooking the Kaipara River, Active Explorers Helensville is a brand new purpose-designed early childhood centre offering top-quality care and education for local children. Licensed for up to 85 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, the centre features three separate rooms for each age and stage, large, dynamic outdoor play spaces, and the latest educational resources. With a strong focus on natural resources and a passionate team of highly experienced teachers, Active Explorers Helensville has everything your child needs to learn, grow and thrive.

Set up your little ones up with a love of learning and empower them to reach their full potential. 

Our philosophy

Active Explorers Helensville aims to provide high quality care and education for young children within a supportive environment for parents and whānau.  We intend to achieve this by providing superior facilities, quality educational equipment and programmes and well qualified and caring teaching staff.

We believe that children learn and develop in an early childhood environment where they are happy and secure.  We believe that the physical environment and the educational programme needs to be of the highest quality and that this is essential for the wellbeing of the children, whānau and teachers.  We believe families will be confident that the choices they have made for their child’s education and care are the right ones. We also believe that quality early childhood experiences promote the development of the child and will increase the opportunity for success throughout the child’s life.

Our rooms

Active Explorers Helensville has three separate rooms for each age and stage, ensuring children’s different needs and interests are ideally catered for.

Nursery

This warm and welcoming space provides loving care for our under 2s.

Junior Room

Specially designed for our toddlers, this vibrant, engaging room is home away from home for our 2 to 3.5 year olds.

Preschool Room

Children aged from 3.5 to 6 are well catered for in our stimulating and inspiring Preschool Room.

Why choose us

The newest member of the Active Explorers family, Active Explorers Helensville is a brand new centre, offering exceptional care, education and facilities.

Here are just a few reasons why Active Explorers Helensville is a great choice for your child:

• Brand new purpose built centre equipped with all the latest resources and facilities
• Great rural location overlooking Kaipara River
• Extended opening hours great for busy working parents (7am to 6pm)
• Nutritious cooked meals provided (morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, late snack)
• Separate rooms for different age groups
• Dynamic outdoor spaces
• Strong focus on natural resources
• Highly experienced and dedicated teaching team (80 percent qualified)
• Yoga
• We celebrate different cultures
• Strong community focus

Nau mai, haere mai and welcome to Helensville Playcentre

Playcentre is unlike any other early childhood education organisation. At Playcentre, both children and their parents / caregivers attend.

At Playcentre children get the opportunity to learn and explore in a fun and safe environment.

The curiosity and creativity of our tamariki is nurtured in a way that allows them to learn about themselves and their world.

Your child will be given a chance to explore, create, climb, read, sing, experiment, play music, wear costumes, have their face painted (or do it themselves!), garden, do carpentry with real tools, bake and cook, build sandcastles, swing, slide, dance, spend time in nature and get messy.

The activities change every day. Playcentre parents all bring different skills, interests, and cultural backgrounds to add to the rich learning environment.

We welcome families with children aged 0 – 6 years. Mixed age play allows your children to engage with others older and younger than themselves. Pre-schoolers learn how to communicate, share and negotiate with empathy for their younger peers.

At Playcentre, families come together and lifelong friendships are formed.

We welcome you to visit any time during the year. You are entitled to three free visits so come and check out what we do – we would love to meet you and your family!

Nau mai, haere mai and welcome to Kaukapakapa Playcentre

Playcentre is unlike any other early childhood education organisation. At Playcentre, both children and their parents / caregivers attend.

At Playcentre children get the opportunity to learn and explore in a fun and safe environment.

The curiosity and creativity of our tamariki is nurtured in a way that allows them to learn about themselves and their world.

Your child will be given a chance to explore, create, climb, read, sing, experiment, play music, wear costumes, have their face painted (or do it themselves!), garden, do carpentry with real tools, bake and cook, build sandcastles, swing, slide, dance, spend time in nature and get messy.

The activities change every day. Playcentre parents all bring different skills, interests, and cultural backgrounds to add to the rich learning environment.

We welcome families with children aged 0 – 6 years. Mixed age play allows your children to engage with others older and younger than themselves. Pre-schoolers learn how to communicate, share and negotiate with empathy for their younger peers.

At Playcentre, families come together and lifelong friendships are formed.

We welcome you to visit any time during the year. You are entitled to three free visits so come and check out what we do – we would love to meet you and your family!

Amanda and Justin, with their two young children, are the proud owners of The Homestead.  Amanda comes from a long history of early childhood with her mother Maggie-Anne being an early childhood teacher herself.  Although now retired, Maggie is still involved in the centre and hand makes all of the individual quilts for each child when they start at the Homestead.  Amanda and Justin's daughter also attended the centre up until recently when she left for school.

Owned by a family, not a big corporate, our teaching team are passionate about children and are dedicated to putting your children's well-being and learning outcomes at the forefront of everything they do.  

We are proud to be able to provide small group sizes and good quality teacher:child ratios, meaning your child has more one-on-one time with our passionate and highly experienced teachers.

Home away from home

Our centre is a beautiful 120 year old villa, modernised and converted into an amazing Early Learning Centre.   We believe that children learn best when they are in a stress-free environment and a place that they feel comfortable and secure.  Our setting is warm and nurturing, like an extension of home.  

We are so lucky to have a huge expansive playground with real grass, natural resources, fresh air and cows as our only neighbours.... giving it a real country feel.  Access to the natural world is an important part of our philosophy.

Infants

Infants from 3mths - 2 years are cared for in our Garden Room. 

We take inspiration from the RIE philosophy which focuses on respectful education and care.  This approach incorporates a deep respect of the baby and encourages infants and adults to trust each other, learn to problem solve, and embrace their ability for self-discovery.  We trust the child to be the initiator of exploration.  We provide time for uninterrupted play and allow the freedom to explore and interact with other infants.  When allowed to unfold in their own way and in their own time, children discover an authentic sense of self which lays the foundation for secure relationships, enduring curiosity and lasting self-confidence. Our environment is full of natural resources and provides challenging age-appropriate equipment to help encourage your baby to develop naturally. 

We know how important it is for childrens' wellbeing to be in a centre with small group sizes and so we are very proud of our small group size of maximum of 12 children in our infants space.  We have a 1:3 ratio for under 1's and a 1:4 ratio for 1 - 2 years.

Toddlers

Toddlers from 2 - 3 years move through to our main house with huge natural garden. 

In this age group we are inspired by Reggio Emilia.  The Reggio approach to early childhood education views young children as individuals who are curious about their world and have the powerful potential to learn from all that surrounds them. Educational, psychological, and sociological influences are important factors to consider in understanding children and working to stimulate learning in appropriate ways. Teachers employ strategies such as offering children a wide variety of educational opportunities that encourage self-expression, communication, logical thinking, and problem-solving.

For our toddlers, we have a focus on loose parts to stimulate creativity and problem solving.  Our toys are mostly made of open-ended natural materials.  Nature inspires a lot of our play.

Preschool

Pre-schoolers move to our separate Cottage where more structured and focused learning is gradually introduced. 

The world of work is changing and the skills that adults need to be successful today will be different in the future.  We believe adaptability, creativity, resilience and social skills are just as important as early literacy and numeracy.  Children learn best through play and exploration so we provide lots of opportunities for our children to experiment and try out their ideas.  We also offer our preschool children opportunities for them to learn and develop early literacy and numeracy skills through fun activities. 

We have strong links to local schools and when children are nearing school age we offer the opportunity for your child to visit their local school with a preschool teacher.

We offer a specialised education opportunity for your child. Our hours are 8:45am- 3:15pm ( extended to 3:30pm by arrangement) during school terms. Attendance during school holidays can be available

Our Team

Warm, trusting relationships will always be  the foundation for children’s learning. For this reason our teacher ratios are 1:4 in Nido and 1:6 in Casa and Villa.

“A culture of high relational trust encourages professional discussion and critical reflection that results in improved teaching practice.” Education Review Office

About Sunny Days

At Sunny Days children will be given the opportunity to develop a positive self-image and experience success through developmentally appropriate activities in the aspects of mathematics; construction; language; literacy; social skills; music and movement; science and nature; and arts and crafts. All these are based on child-initiated interests within the centre.

It is important at Sunny Days to be able to provide enriching experiences to the children. All of these help to develop their social skills and language development. We promote respect among all the children, teaching manners and respect regardless of people’s differences. Sunny Days prides itself on being a community centre working alongside you, your children and your family/whanau.

Our Mission Statement

Sunny Days Preschool believes in having a strong Vision, Purpose and Values in the Centre. This is to achieve Excellence and equitable education and care for our Tamariki. This is also consistent with our Philosophy, Strategic Plan and Curriculum design.