High Quality Early Education and Care for Tamariki aged 6 Months to 6 Years
8.00am- 4.30pm
21 Titoki Street, Stoke, Nelson
Tōtara Kids ELC is a mixed aged space for 29 children. Our mixed aged setting allows for a true whānau atmosphere, ample tuakana/teina learning and our teacher:child ratios allow tamariki to learn alongside each other.
We have established our own care system to gain the best from Primary Care (which we know from research is the best possible situation for children in ECE), yet we are able to provide consistency when ‘life happens’ and kaiako are away from TK.
We have called our care system Family Care.
Family Care is different from having key teachers or teaching teams as it still uses a primary care model, but makes it very clear where responsibility lies for care routines. It stops us falling into a more ‘crowd management’ style of ECE where one teacher does all the nappies, another supports sleepers and one is outside. With family care we remain relationship lead, give tamariki a voice and they have some say in the relationships they have with kaiako, while we ensure every child is seen, heard and connected with daily. Our teachers are not rostered into positions so they can freely move to be with children as they would in their own homes.