Our Philosophy​

At Kauri Learners we believe in creating a warm and welcoming environment where children,families and staff are included and respected in the daily life of our centre. We acknowledge each child an individual, supporting their emotional and social needs,empowering them to build on their self confidence,self-esteem and sense of belonging through a trusting environment. The Kari is a prized and important tree in our area,and the word KAURI from Kauri Learners is an acronym for our expectations and values standing for everything we aim to equip young learners with- grow tall,proud and strong. The expectations and values here at Kauri Learners are also the behavior expectations for Mercury Bay Area School, which form the foundations for the next step of the children's learning journey, or wherever they may go to school.

Our aesthetically pleasing environment is a stimulating and challenging child centered space, where infants,toddlers and young children are encouraged to make their own choices of self directed learning and play. The environment will reflect each child's learning and achievements through learning journals and current documentation displayed displayed around each classroom. The role of the physical environment is referred to as the third teacher, and its role is to inform and engage each individual child. We encourage and support each child's knowledge,skills and disposition to the different experiences within this rich learning environment. 

We have an emergent curriculum that encourages and empowers children to learn through free play both independently and alongside their peers and educators. We recognize that each unique with different needs, interest, strengths and rates of development. 

We are a rural Playcentre running two mixed-age morning sessions and one afternoon session a week.  Sessions are planned, organised and run by parent volunteers.

We follow a free-play philosophy where children are able to choose their own activities and direct their own learning, with support as required, from adults who genuinely care about them and are enthusiastic about helping children extend their play. We aim to provide learning experiences that will arouse children’s natural curiosity, encouraging them to develop their own working theories of the world around them. 

We believe that parents are the first and best teachers of their children.  Whanaungatanga and manaakitanga are integral parts of our philosophy – we welcome all families who would like to join us, and together we are a proud and supportive Playcentre family.

Riverlee Early Learning Centre provides quality care and education for children from birth to six years of age.

Riverlee Early Learning Centre is dedicated to high quality standards in education and care of young children, that supports and empowers children for the journey of life long learning.

It is our philosophy that children deserve to be immersed in a beautiful harmonious environment that resembles a home, where each individual child can find a sense of belonging to the centre and to the natural environment.

Our dedicated teaching team is experienced and highly skilled and share a vision of nature based learning and Education for Sustainability to be significant in the early years. The teachers will marvel in the simplicity of the natural world with your child, finding bugs and making huts will be daily events, as will be making bread, feeding and visiting the farm animals and gardening.

The 12 acre farmlet located just outside of Whitianga is unique and majestic and the natural environment creates the foundation for our programme which underpinnes by the principles of the Early childhood Curriculum, Te Whariki.

We provide a play based curriculum within a safe and challenging environment. We are a well resourced centre with a wide range of resources, equipment, and experiences to meet the physical, intellectual, social and language needs of infants, toddlers and young children.

Philosophy

At Whenuakite Country Kids we provide an environment where tamariki, whānau and staff feel loved, secure and affirmed as individuals. The heart of our centre is built upon strong reciprocal relationships within our community. The very whenua that our centre is built upon was generously donated by our neighbours, for the benefit of our community. We have enormous gratitude for the many whānau and friends who have given their services to our centre over the years. We honour the wealth of knowledge and experience which everyone in our learning community brings to our centre.