Childcare options in New Brighton

The best way to prepare children for the future is to meet children's needs and focus on their strengths in the present.

Our Teaching Philosophy

We believe in providing quality Early Childhood Education and care at our preschools for families/whanau in the Canterbury communities.

Our commitment to quality means:

• respecting, valuing and supporting each child as an individual.
• providing a safe secure, nurturing, creative and challenging environment that builds on the child’s strengths, interests and meets their holistic needs.
• fostering an atmosphere in which parents are supported in their role and feel confident, welcome and are able to contribute to the life of the centres.
• teaching staff are professional sensitive, responsive, committed practitioners who deliver a high-quality learning programme in a nurturing, caring environment.
• providing a quality adult to child ratio that ensures all children have opportunities for positive, constructive individual interactions with teachers.
• providing a comprehensive curriculum that encompasses the Principles, Strands, and Goals of Te Whāriki, the Early Childhood Curriculum.
• all children are given the opportunity to develop a knowledge and understanding of their own culture and the cultural heritage of both partners of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Welcome | Nau mai, haere mai New Brighton Community Preschool and Nursery is a place that provides high-quality education and care for tamariki (children) through to their primary education years. For 40 years our innovative, child directed learning centre has had a strong history and connection within our seaside community, and a keen interest in nurturing our environment, alongside our tamariki and their whanau.

Preschool & Nursery | Kōhanga

The nursery and the preschool learning environments are each designed to facilitate both individual and small group learning interests. The curriculum is responsive to the needs, strengths and learning interests of tamariki. Our role as kaiako (teachers) is to support and inspire children’s mana and identity as a successful learner and contributor to our community.

The curriculum design is based on play-based learning and we provide a thoughtfully prepared learning environment that reflects risk taking, humour, playful banter and accomplishment. Our richly resources environment gives our tamariki opportunity to explore and be intentional about how they want to engage within our centre curriculum design.

We believe in partnership with tamariki and whānau and therefore listen carefully to needs and aspirations to foster trusting and reciprocal relationships. We come together (whakawhanaungatanga) to share our place, we enjoy being with tamariki and learning together. We take the time to get to know each child, recognising their uniqueness, embrace this and plan around this knowledge, supporting learning interests.

We listen to whānau and create a sense that this is their place; their language, culture and identity is valued within our centre and they belong. We support whānau to create relationships with others so they feel they can contribute to this community and our wider community.

We create an environment where children see their image as a successful learner and feel that what they do matters. We create a fun learning environment in which tamariki can choose how to participate. We advocate for tamariki whether this is within assessment or role modelling in our learning environment.

Nova Montessori School and the Children’s House is located at 53 Owles Terrace, Christchurch in a residential area near a large shopping centre. Located opposite the Avon River, there are beautiful views of the Estuary and Port Hills. It is within easy walking distance of the estuary, beach, shopping centre and library.

We use the term Children’s House to designate a Montessori preschool because we do not view it as “pre” school. We see it as a very relevant “school” that meets the child’s physical, emotional and intellectual needs between the ages of three and six.

What are the elements of the Montessori approach that create a unique learning environment?

Let us suggest a few…

• Liberty
• Activity
• Responsibility
• Community
• Love

Liberty

Liberty is essential to learning. Through free choice children express and strengthen their individuality, fostering the development of self confidence and integrity. Freedom of choice reinforces the construction of a healthy and vibrant will as well as independent thinking. Montessori explains, ‘”The child ‘constructs’ his (or her) own will by a process of self education … developing the will by making decisions.”

Activity

Montessori learning strategies for all developmental stages call for the inclusion of purposeful activity – activity which connects the intellect with real to life experiences. The didactic materials that are found in Montessori environments are tools for reflective action. They are meaningful in that they draw the learner into relationship. They are not ‘tools for teaching’ as much as they are experiences upon which one constructs personalised theory. Knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.

Responsibility

The boundary of liberty is the domain of the responsibility. Every child needs opportunities to acquire social, physical and moral responsibility. In the Montessori learning environment responsibility. In the Montessori learning environment responsibility is developed through experience and natural consequences.

Children are provided opportunities through social life activity to align themselves with the highest values needed in a democratic society.

Community

Communion is a basic human need to belong. It is an act of sharing that creates a context for personal and group meaning. A healthy community that requires the nurturing of deep communication skills – skills that honour children as individuals and ones that create a safe space for listening, hearing and honest dialogue.

Love

Love is not only the attractive force that compels us to be with each other, it is a continuum of respect and reverence for life and the unfolding potential of humanity. Without love, learning is reduced to a method or a subject and the field of experience is limited.

Montessori explains, “A teacher must not imagine she can prepare herself for this vocation simply by acquiring knowledge and culture. Above all else she must cultivate a proper attitude to the moral order.” In every school subject there is an activity of love. It is this spiritual component which differentiates a Montessori class from a class that uses Montessori materials.