BestStart Parklands offers quality education and care for children aged from 3 months to 6. years old. We have large outdoor areas in both the preschool and nursery that provide plenty of space for children to develop their gross motor skills in a natural environment.

Belonging, being, becoming me! 

A child from even before birth is linked to family, community, culture and our place - Aotearoa. Through these key relationships in the lives of our tamariki, a child's development and learning takes place. 

Belonging is important for tamariki when developing their own identity, this helps to develop a sense of connection. 

Being is about children expressing themselves as individuals and developing their personality, culture, and learning.

Becoming is about our tamariki learning and growing, allowing them to understand and build on skills and relationships, and become an active member of society. 

Our friendly, home-like centre has qualified and experienced teachers who believe in providing a respectful and fun environment and who are passionate about teaching. We value parent/whanau involvement and regularly provide social opportunities for you to stay and play. We provide healthy morning and afternoon snacks which the children often help to make themselves, providing learning opportunities in maths, literacy, numeracy, turn taking and the opportunity to develop social skills. They also develop their knowledge of healthy and nutritious foods.

Piwakawaka rūma - We are proud of our nursery room which is calm and follows the routines and interests of each child by responsive and skilled teachers. We have a shoe free policy which ensures the children have a respectful, clean environment to explore in. Our nursery room is very flexible and we work with you to ensure your child’s routine at home is followed here also, creating a gentle transition into the new environment. We strive to ensure that this transition into the nursery is smooth and easy going for you both. Together we organise visits so both you and your child can get to know the teachers before you start with us. The teachers all believe that nurturing children through respect and communication builds on children’s well-being and emotional development. 

Our outdoor environment provides a covered spacious area for the children to explore their natural environment, with natural materials, provided through play experiences. Our environment promotes your child’s development and growth through fun and educational experiences and activities we do this by providing access to heuristic resources and wooden toys.

Pukeko rūma - Our busy preschool room is spacious which allows our young children the freedom to explore and be challenged as we value children’s play and discovery. In the preschool room we have children from 2 years old until school age, which is great as the older children love to help the younger children in the room and the younger children learn so much from their older peers. Tuakana teina is very important to us here at BestStart Parklands. Tuakana/teina refers to the relationship between an older (tuakana) person and a younger (teina) person and is specific to teaching and learning in the Māori context. This can take a variety of forms and we embrace them all. 

We provide regular excursions to the local library, Parkview School, local park and the Parklands shopping centre. We have a strong relationship with Parkview school and we take children from the preschool over to the school on their school visits to support our families. We have access to the school’s library and we have relationships with all the new entrant teachers, ensuring that the transition to school is smooth and enjoyable.

We have recently developed strong relationships with fellow kūra in the community. We have great relationships with Parkview (Pārua) Queenspark, and we even visit as far as Waitākeri and Rāwhiti for tamariki who are going to those schools when they transition from Parklands. We have a great learning initiative between ourselves and Parkview school, which is directly across the road. Tuakana teina relationships are being formed, with the older teaching the younger while coming to visit with fun activities. We believe our tamariki also come out of this teaching the older tamariki some things too!

We celebrate many special events at BestStart Parklands, both culturally and for fun. Some of the exciting events you will see in our centre are Plunket week, Easter weekend festivities, Matariki, St Patricks day, Halloween, scooter/bike weeks, NZ Sign Language week, Te wiki o te reo Maori, Waitangi Day, Chinese New Year and so much more. 

For more information about the specific fees for your centre, please contact us directly (03) 383 8085 / parklands@best-start.org. You might be eligible for support paying their childcare fees. For more information click here.