Vanessa Lloyd
Centre Manager

Northland

Childspace Northland is situated at 17 Albemarle Road. It has facilities to cater for a full range of early childhood programmes. This begins with our nursery children who are supported by two teachers with up to eight infants. The benefits of being a 0-5 years centre means that many of our children can transition through our centre and form strong relationships over their time with us. As we have many siblings attending it means children are easily and regularly able to visit older and younger siblings throughout the day enabling all children to benefit from tuakana-teina relationships (learning from peers). Three teachers work with the 2-5 year group, creating a diverse early childhood programme that includes a strong focus on art, heuristic and self-directed play.

Our centre is made unique by its ‘Wild Space’ or ‘Secret Garden’ which gives children an opportunity to connect with nature allowing them to respect and appreciate Papatūānuku –Mother Earth. It creates great physical challenges for our children and through all seasons the children are able to explore their relationship with the natural world, including our prolific bird population. We are passionate about having sustainable practices and children are involved in caring for our worm farm and creating compost for our vegetable garden.

Teachers at Childspace Northland believe strongly in fostering ongoing relationships between the family and the children which supports children’s sense of belonging and wellbeing within the centre. Much of our inspiration comes from the work of Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber.

 Our centre has 'parent conversations' twice each year. These are a special time when parents are invited to come and meet with their childs primary teacher. They share stories about their child and the teachers respond with a written summary of each childs individual learning and development in the centre over the previous 6 months. This is not to replace day to day interaction with families but to provide a focussed time to share.

We offer an innovative programming system which celebrates individual children’s interests and strengths in their journey of learning and development. Each child has a profile book which their primary caregiver adds to with stories about their interests and development. We also use an online system called Educa which means that parents have a choice if they would like to be able to access stories and photos of their children through an online system, a great way to stay in touch!

Parents are also welcome to attend workshops provided by the teaching team at Northland, our early childhood institute or by an outside speaker. These workshops provide new knowledge for familes and support parents in areas that are of current interest. So far we have had workshops such as, food & nutrition, self regulation, child behaviour, fathering, ukulele and much more!

Parent reflection:

" Always very warmly welcomed and feel like Childspace is a 'home away from home".

"I think that teachers incorporate professionalism with warmth and genuine care, which is exactly what I wanted".