Playcentre Education History

History of Playcentre Education

Playcentre has a rich history of adult education from its earliest days. Early Playcentre leaders championed Playcentre parents and whānau as the first and best educators of children and created formal and informal opportunities for adults to gain new skills, knowledge and the confidence to parent and educate the next generation and to grow as community leaders.

To find out more about the history of the adult education within Playcentre, read the first few introductory chapters of Learning Together the Playcentre Way (Alisa Densem & Barbara Chapman, 2000) and Good Clean Fun (Sue Stover, 2003). Learning Together the Playcentre Way is available to purchase from the Canterbury Playcentre Shop, whereas Good Clean Fun is currently out of print. Most Playcentres will have copies of these books (or would have at one time.)

Through the years, Playcentre has offered informal awards and formal qualifications with a variety of names: Parent helper certificate, Playcentre supervisor or Team leader certificate, National Certificate, NZPF Association Certificate and NZPF Federation Certificate (with component courses called stages then parts) and from 2000 – 2018 the Playcentre Diploma in Adult and Early Childhood Education (Level 6), composed of courses 1 – 6 delivered within Playcentre associations.

From 2019, Playcentre has offered the New Zealand Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care (Level 4). This was also known as the B-series and C-series. From January 2023, Playcentre Education has delivered version 2 of this certificate. If you had started on version 1 of the certificate, rest assured that most modules have a transfer of credit (B-series to the Playcentre Educator (PE)-series, and C-series to the Playcentre Leader (PL)-series).