Hillsborough

Hillsborough Playcentre

We are a thriving, multicultural playcentre on the border of Mount Roskill and Hillsborough. We have a small roll, meaning we can offer children one-on-one attention and support.

Our playcentre has a large outdoor area and a wide range of toys and activities for your children to enjoy.

What is Playcentre?

Playcentre is a unique, New Zealand wide organisation that has been dedicated to early childhood education for over 75 years. It is for children from birth to school age. 

Playcentre firmly believes that family / whanau are the first and best educators for their children. We are entirely run by family / whanau who want to be involved in their children’s learning, and also want to meet and form friendships with other families in the area. As a family co-operative, we share the responsibility for supervising, organising, maintaining and running the centre, under the guidelines of the New Zealand Playcentre Federation and Ministry of Education. For Playcentre to operate there must be an appropriate level of trained parents on site on each session. Playcentre offers free training to all parents attending and these are part of the NZ Early Childhood Curriculum. 

Hillsborough Playcentre offers children: 

• A child initiated programme based on children’s individual strengths and interests
• A high adult to child ratio (1:3)
• A rich variety of play and learning experiences
• A safe and secure environment 
• Positive and sustained interactions with other adults and children
• Ample time to discover and explore
• A large and peaceful outdoor environment, with many different play opportunities (swings, sandpit, playblocks etc)
• Quality equipment and learning resources

Playcentre offers adults:

• Support as a parent
• Involvement in their child’s early childhood education
• Free adult education programmes that cover parenting skills, children’s learning and development and so much more! Once you get to the certification/diploma level it is NZQA recognised. 
• Opportunities to take on new responsibilities and learn new skills 
• Confidence in themselves and their parenting 
• Friendships  

The Playcentre Philosophy and programme 

Our learning programme is based on the NZ Early Childhood Curriculum, Te Whāriki, which empowers children to “grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society” Te Whāriki (1996).

Playcentre philosophy is based on a few core beliefs about how children learn. Children are viewed as strong and capable people who learn through play and are competent to make their own choices about how and where to play. This means that they are free to choose their own activities – in their own time – for as long as they want. When children play freely, they learn at their own pace.  In their time at Playcentre children are given the opportunity to: 

• feel secure, nurtured and confident about who they are
• look after themselves, respect the needs and rights of others, as well as respect for equipment and property
• play and learn alongside children of mixed ages and adults 
• develop social skills and co-operation 
• develop leadership
• develop communication skills
• be creative and expressive 
• work on problem solving and decision making
• explore and experiment 
• develop early literacy, numeracy and science skills
• develop fine motor skills as well as gross motor skills 
• practice setting their own learning goals, develop a love of learning, have fun and so much more…

At each session a large number of activities are set up and available to the children so the children have the opportunity to explore any area and type of play they wish.