At Tree Bears we recognise the significance of our bicultural heritage as we seek to acknowledge the principles inherent in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Tuakana teina, learning and sharing knowledge together is weaved into our curriculum and supports the development of emotional and social competence. In addition, te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are meaningfully incorporated into our programme. The curriculum offers multiple opportunities for integrating early literacy and early math along with communication into our experiences to enable every child every day to learn how to learn.

 

Creating meaningful relationships with whānau within a family focused environment supports a strong partnership between the centre and home and contributes to a sense of whanaungatanga.  We seek to have high aspirations for every learner and working alongside whānau to enhance tamariki mana and their learner identity. Every day, every child has equitable opportunities to learn, grow and discover.

 

Using Essential Life Skills as a framework to support and guide our practice provides a clear focus for building knowledge, skills, and understanding to support the holistic way children learn and grow. Within this framework we promote trust, friendliness, respect, creativity, curiosity, unity, and independence.

 

Exploring our local community provides a wealth of learning for tamariki to make connections with the natural world and take responsibility of being kaitiakitanga of our local environment.

 

Kaiako whakamana all tamariki to become independent learners, who see the world as a place full of possibilities and creativity.

They are encouraged to learn through active exploration, problem-solving, thinking and reasoning, risk taking which all contribute to growing the courage to live confidently in a rapidly changing world.