Childcare options in Melville

At Active Explorers Melville, children come first. Staffed by a passionate and dedicated team of educators, we strive to give your child the best possible early childhood experience. Our inclusive and nurturing environment helps build confidence and independence, and we encourage our tamariki to become competent explorers, learners and leaders.

Our purpose-built centre features an amazing outdoor space where children can explore nature and challenge themselves. We work closely with whanau to tap into each child’s unique potential, helping them become the best they can be, and ensuring a positive start to a lifetime of learning.

Come and experience Active Explorers Melville.

Our philosophy

Empowering children to be successful in their world

At Active Explorers Melville we actively provide a safe learning environment that ensures respectful quality care, where tamariki feel empowered and are encouraged to take risks.

We acknowledge and value the wide range of cultures at our centre, understanding that each culture brings with it richness. We acknowledge Te Tiriti o Waitangi through bicultural practice where we are inclusive, supportive and understanding of all children and their whaanau.

We value working alongside parents, whaanau and our communities. Through trusted conversations and shared experiences, we build partnerships that allows us to collaboratively grow and develop each child’s individual journey.

We have a holistic approach that enables us to build meaningful relationships. Open communication helps us to understand and better cater to the hauora of the tamariki. We are dedicated to assuring children are nurtured and supported so they feel confident and have a positive effective learning experience.

Our Rooms

Active Explorers Melville has four separate rooms to cater for children at each age and stage. Keen advocates of the tuakana/teina buddy concept, children also have the opportunity to develop relationships with children of other ages, through mixed age play in our awesome outdoor areas.

Tui Room

This cosy, nurturing space is home to our youngest Active Explorers, aged from birth to around 18 months. In the Tui room we focus on and cater for each child’s holistic needs. Once their hearts are settled, their minds are ready to learn. 

We follow children’s interests and provide them with the time and space to progress at their own pace. Play based activities and resources all contribute to their literacy and numeracy. We also focus on developing good learning dispositions such as curiosity, determination and problem solving. Having these dispositions from a young age will form a firm foundation that leads to positive attitudes and lifelong learning.

The Tui Room daily routine is solely dependent on each individual child. During the transition visits, families will be asked to fill out a routine form so we know what your child does at home, and we will do our absolute best to do the same here so there is continuity and familiarity.

In the Tui room we stress the importance of working together with families. As teachers we may be the expert in resources, but we know that parents are the experts of their child, so together we can provide the best care and education for your baby. We love family involvement in all aspects, ranging from parent feedback to centre events, and everything in between!

Pukeko Room

The Pukeko Room is home to our children aged from 18 months to 3 years. Here we follow a free play, child initiated routine.  When children have free play, they choose what they want to do, how they want to do it and when to stop and try something else. Teachers provide the space and resources for play, based on children’s individual interests and needs. Children take lead of their own play and learning, and teachers respond and extend this based on observations and cues. Free play allows children time to develop their own play, make their own choices and follow their own interests.  As children become aware of their own capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, they begin to test their own limits through physical, social and emotional experiences.

We have a rolling kai routine in the Pukeko Room, with set times for meals to begin but children are free to come and eat as they please. This allows them to continue in their engaged play without interruption. If children have not been in for food before it is put away, a teacher will encourage them to come in to eat. We also support children’s individual routines through rolling sleep, this means that our sleep room is available for children at all times of the day based on their needs and parents’ wishes.

Within the Pukeko Room we focus on children’s dispositional learning. Learning dispositions are characteristics or attitudes to learning that are life skills. These are used to understand children’s ability to be self-motivated and be lifelong learners in a changing world. We strive to develop the confidence and independence of each of our tamariki to be competent and responsible for themselves and their belongings. This occurs through child led learning where teachers are noticing, recognising and responding to the children’s individual interests and needs, creating a learning journey that is documented and supported on a daily basis.

Each child has a profile book where all their learning notes, plans and stories are kept. These are also uploaded onto Storypark for quick access.

We believe in learning through play, allowing tamariki the time and space to develop theories and understanding of the many aspects of their wider world through imagination, creativity and active exploration.

Parent voice and aspirations play a large role in our children’s learning journey. We look forward to working alongside the parents and whanau of the tamariki in our care, to have conversations and share experiences to understand each child holistically.

Kea Room and Kakapo Room

Our Kea and Kakapo Rooms cater for our energetic 3 to 6 years olds and are the ideal stepping stone to primary school.

We believe in catering to individual needs and ask parents for aspirations for their child, which we then use to create an individual plan to support learning and development. Our aim is to support individuals to become confident lifelong learners that have the right skills to move forward into the primary school sector.

We value relationships with whaanau and our community, we celebrate individuality and encourage independence. We love seeing children grow and develop daily. We are here to work alongside parents and whaanau to support children in all areas.

Our Kea and Kaakapoo Rooms are lucky to have large and spacious spaces with a great outdoor environment. Our variety of swings, obstacle courses, bikes, climbing frames and large sandpit are favourites of the children.

Why choose us?

Active Explorers Melville strives to gives children the best possible start in life. Here are just a few of the reasons why we’re the centre of choice for so many local families:

• Extended opening hours
• Nutritious cooked meals
• Healthy Heart gold award
• Large outdoor playground
• Vegetable garden and an orchard that children help tend
• We celebrate cultural events and local festivals
• Holiday programmes
• Excellent whanau relationships
• Strong sustainability programme
• children love our centre fish and frogs

Whilst we generally have rooms that are divided like this with over three year olds in our Casa dei Bambini classroom and under three year olds in our Nido and Young Community classrooms, every child is unique.

In true Montessori style, we follow the child. Under two year olds need to develop skills to feed themselves and drink confidently from a glass, put on their own shoes and hat and sleep on a mattress in preparation for moving into our middle classroom in the Young Community.

Children transition into the Casa classroom when they are fully toilet learnt and they are normalised into the Montessori way of working, which includes making independent choices, having sustained concentration and having self-help skills. Moving into the next classroom is never a race, it is taken at the child’s pace.

Welcome to BestStart Bader Street, a beautiful second home for our children and families. place which is a home away from home for your child. Situated on the corner of Bader Street and Willis Ave within walking distance to Waikato Hospital, we care for children from 0-5 years old all through the year. The Education Review Office has rated us one of the top NZ childcare centres in NZ.

If you believe it, you can achieve it

Here, at BestStart Bader, we empower our children to reach their full potential by providing them with opportunities to try new things each day. We challenge children to take risks and to not be afraid to fail.

Our highly qualified and experienced teachers  love supporting children in wonderful learning journey. We are here to empower our children to develop a love for learning. It's about not doubting their skills and knowing what they are capable of. It's with their achievements, big or small, that they develop their confidence. Showing children, we believe in them, empowers them for school and later in their life.

At BestStart Bader, we support children to develop their skills through play-based learning. This is where children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. Play is much more than fun and games. At BestStart Bader, play based activities and opportunities create a love for learning, hence children will enjoy learning throughout their life.

Whanaungatanga (Relationships) provide the foundations of everything we do here. We acknowledge everyone’s unique culture, and our teachers take the time to understand what that is, which opens pathways for respect and reciprocal relationships. Children learn through meaningful, positive relationships with people, places, and things. 

Each member of our team dedicates time to ensuring they build trusting relationships with families and their children. Our routines, activities and daily running of our curriculum is designed around each child’s needs, current interests, and passions.

We engage frequently in cultural celebrations and whanau evenings with our children and families, and these are a significant part of our programme and centre culture. We understand that new knowledge can grow out of shared learning experiences, thus we invite families to share their knowledge, culture and skills with our teachers and children at our centre.

It gives us a boost to know how children learn and our integral role in supporting their learning. As educators, we believe in taking a step back and allowing children to solve problems, even as babies. This will go a long way toward helping them navigate the world on their own. Instead of just dropping the puzzle shape in for them, for example, we can verbally guide them, allowing them to figure it out themselves. We develop individuals who are proud of themselves and strive to achieve their goals through perseverance and determination.

At BestStart Bader we have strong Community connections - We support children’s learning and development by going on regular local excursions out in our community to support our children’s current interests.

We work alongside the Healthy Heart Foundation and provide nutritious food for our children. We have a cook who provides fresh, nutritious, and delicious meals everyday including breakfast, lunch, and morning and afternoon tea, which is all included in the childcare fee depending on your child’s hours.

Who is BestStart?

BestStart is for families who want more from early-childhood education. Safe, nurturing and educationally focused, we’re committed to growing caring people with curious minds.

Together we teach, learn and nurture.

Our vision is to work in partnership with families, whanau and communities to enable children to achieve their learning potential.

Ko tō mātou tirohanga hei mahi ngātahi i te taha o ngā whānau me ngā hāpori, kia āwhinatia ngā tamariki, kia tū pito mata ai rāatou, hei rangatira mō āpōpō.

We are committed to being a progressive and responsive leader in early-childhood education. We do this by enhancing our services, investing in our people, developing our support structure and continuously improving the educational outcomes and experiences of our children, families and the communities we serve.

Some facts:

• We’re licensed to educate and care for 15,000 full-time children daily.
• 18,000 families use BestStart services annually.
• We have over 270 centres nationwide located from Whangarei to Invercargill.
• Each centre is managed by a Centre Manager who is supported by a local Area Manager. This gives our centre teams ongoing quality training and support.
• Te Whāriki, the world-wide acclaimed national early childhood education curriculum, is used in all centres.
• We have over 4500 permanent teachers nationally. Over 90% of our permanent teaching staff are either fully qualified with a diploma or bachelor of teaching (ECE) or higher, or are in training. These figures are very high by national standards within the ECE sector.
• We provide a two-year Advice and Guidance Programme for all recently certified teachers, providing further mentoring and training. This gives strong support for teachers from provisional registration to full teacher registration with the NZ Teachers Council.
• We regularly spend around $4 million on teacher training per annum.

We’re for children

At our heart is our commitment and passion for children. Central to this belief is our focus on the holistic development of children. We support children to explore the world around them, learning through relationships, creating a love of learning in an ever-changing world. Exploration, friendship and fun are part of the journey.

We’re for good

BestStart is a registered charity owned by the Wright Family Foundation. We support initiatives and programmes within BestStart and the wider early-childhood education sector (ECE) that support good outcomes for all children. We do this because we want to make a positive difference to the lives of all children.

Innovation leads us

At BestStart, innovation guides our thinking. We advocate positive change for learners through our research and practice. We’re proud to be thought leaders within ECE, openly challenging ourselves to think differently to provide the best for our children, families and staff.

We’re responsive

Our centres reflect their children, staff and communities. We celebrate individuality, uniqueness and diversity, encouraging a spirit of empathy, understanding and collaboration. Through our responsive relationships and our curriculum, we support learners to choose their own path.

Our people matter

At BestStart people come first. When we grow and develop our people, everyone benefits. We strive for whakamana/empowerment, nurturing a culture of excellence with engaged, talented professionals. Their commitment, skill and passion light our way.