About
Why choose us?
There are a host of reasons why families choose Lollipops Takapuna. Here are just a few of them:
- Healthy Heart meals provided including for those with special dietary needs
- Two separate outdoor areas for different age groups enable children to explore safely at their own pace
- Regular walks in the local community (e.g. library, beach, parks)
- Excellent transition to school programme including established partnership with Takapuna Primary School
- Multicultural environment, including many families that have recently arrived in New Zealand
- Skilled staff work collaboratively to settle children from other nations using many strategies to create a strong sense of security, belonging and wellbeing
- Our staff speak several languages and we believe in teaching children in their first language whenever possible
- We celebrate cultural days of all families represented at our centre
- Our team is skilled in adapting teaching practice for children with diverse needs, abilities and strengths
- Close relationship with our neighbours, the Takapuna Methodist Church
- Two parent evenings each year including dinner and guest speakers
- Annual summer excursion (e.g. Auckland Zoo, Kiwi Valley Farm Park, Butterfly Creek)
Our Philosophy
At Lollipops Educare Takapuna we believe that our philosophy is underpinned by providing a welcoming second home for our tamariki and whānau, where their uniqueness (Mauri) is acknowledged, they enjoy a strong sense of belonging (Whanaugatanga), through strong attachments knowing that they have a place here at our centre.
Our kaiako acknowledge and affirm that our curriculum is bi-cultural. We respect and reflect the unique place of Māori, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and acknowledge and validate the diverse multicultural backgrounds of our whānau, their Mana, their values and virtues. We also believe it is fundamental to seek to reflect our multiculturalism through the way in which we welcome all cultures. Our multiculturalism is reflected in “who we are” and is embedded in our curriculum and practise.
Open communication with our parents and whānau is the foundation for positive and reciprocal relationships and is the cornerstone of this partnership. It is through this that we maintain a respectful environment where our tamariki experience Manaakitanga: being nurtured and loved through a curriculum of care, focussing on kindness, supporting children’s self-regulation and in promoting Kotahitanga: taking pleasure in our connections with each other. These relationships and connections are the basis for all learning and development.
We are committed to making a difference in the lives of our tamariki by creating a trusting inclusive environment where their emotional safety and security is supported. We respect the natural unfolding of each child’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative and spiritual development as well as their interests, skills, capabilities and learning dispositions. Our tamariki learn through play and through strong and secure relationships in order to grow their social competency.
Our team is committed to review and to improvement as part of a competent community of learners that is flexible and accommodating. By collaborative power sharing, we are offering choices through problem solving, social skills, negotiating and decision making to foster the development of capable and curious well rounded learners who are developing their Maori dispositions such as Aroha, to make positive choices; Matauranga, to act responsibly and make a valuable contribution to their learning community.
