BestStart Palmerston North

BestStart Palmerston North aims to empower children to reach their full potential through their knowledgeable and experienced teaching team.

Each child is unique and so their learning needs to be tailored in a way that supports them. Having a team of passionate and expert teachers allows for spontaneous learning opportunities to be meaningful, and forward planning for individuals to be thought out and followed through. 

Located close to the central city with two convenient entrances on both Carroll Street and Ngata Street. Since opening in 1989 we have been the centre for so many families in the community.

Kia Timata Pai
Research Project information
Self-regulation research involving around 1,600 BestStart pre-schoolers could be a game-changer for education and generations of children. Named Kia Tīmata Pai (meaning: to start well, safe and sound), the project will span four years, involve around 140 BestStart centres, scores of teachers and 1,600 children. The research, funded by the Wright Family Foundation, is headed by Director of the Dunedin Longitudinal study, Richie Poulton. Other key partners are the Methodist Mission Southern and ERANZ.
Clair Edgeler, BestStart National Education Leader, says that self-regulation is important in the making of positive life-choices. “What we’re setting out to measure are the effects of supporting both oral language and self-regulation together, on a very large scale, and in real world settings.”
We know from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study that self-regulation is key to better adult outcomes.
“The research will use self-regulation games to teach a range of emotional, cognitive (thought processing), and behavioural skills. These include delayed gratification, working memory (using memory to recall information to make decisions) and emotional regulation. An additional programme aims to enrich children’s oral language. Picture-book-reading and high-quality interactions between teachers and children are aimed at enhancing self-regulation and social and emotional skills.
Both the self-regulation games and oral language enrichment programme have undergone smaller previous trials and were deemed highly effective.