WELCOME TO OUR CENTRE
High-quality and affordable early childhood education with no hidden costs. Your child’s home away from home.
- Up to 20 hours FREE* for 2 year olds.
- Up to 30 hours FREE* for 3 years and over.
- After the free hours are applied, our hourly rate is only $6!
- Open 8am-5pm Monday to Friday, for children 2 years – school age.
- Kindergarten sessions available that align with school hours.
- YES! We are open during the school holidays.
- Handy location – the only kindergarten in the heart of Pukekohe town.
- Experienced team of teachers/kaiako who make sure our tamariki are nurtured, inspired and challenged.
- Over 600m2 of natural outdoor play area, with gardens, sandpit, and lots of space to play and make friends in the shade of our big elm tree.
- Open since 1954, Pukekohe Central Kindergarten has served generations of local families.
- Proud to be an Enviroschool. Our tamariki learn to be kaitiakitanga and care for the environment.
We are part of Counties Manukau Kindergarten Association, a not-for-profit organisation. This means our fees are low, and all funds are reinvested into our centres to ensure that high-quality, affordable early childhood education is accessible to all children in our communities.
*limited spaces, conditions apply.
Pukekohe Central Kindergarten was established and opened in 1954. We have a long history of involvement within the Franklin Community, serving generations of local families.
We are a multicultural kindergarten where children and families from different backgrounds feel included and valued, and parents, whānau, and aiga feel welcome to spend time with their children. We are a diverse and passionate team of four qualified kaiako/teachers and a teacher aide.
We provide a stimulating and well-resourced environment that invites and encourages ākonga/children to explore, learn, grow and create beautiful memories. We have a fun and educational space where children can meet and make friends while exploring and experiencing new and exciting challenges. Our beautiful wall mural tells a powerful local Māori myth: Te Mauri o Pukekohekohe.
We have close relationships with local schools as our tamariki transition into the next step in their learning journey.
Learning through play
We believe children are competent, curious, full of potential, and capable of complex thinking. The 21st-century skills children need, such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, and collaboration, are a major focus. At this age, children need to learn how to learn.
We believe that play-based and inquiry-based learning challenge and engage children to make sense of the world. Play is used to maximise each child’s potential in literacy, numeracy, social, physical, and emotional development.
Children and kaiako are partners in learning. Kaiako act as researchers to understand children’s thinking and provoke their ideas. They listen and pose questions to encourage children to test theories, justify reasoning, and assist in developing plans.
The learning environment, as the third teacher, plays an integral role in sparking and inspiring wonder and curiosity. Learning opportunities are a response to children’s interests with intentional materials that promote deeper thinking skills.
Together, kaiako, parents, whānau/aiga, and children present learning journeys through documentation. Children will have many ways to discover, think, communicate, and learn.
Our curriculum emerges from the children’s interests and unfolds and changes each day. We acknowledge and support children’s interests, ideas, suggestions, discoveries, and questions, empowering them to drive their own learning. Our teaching strategies are to co-construct and use a play partner role, getting down on the children’s level, drawing out their interests and sharing in these interests, discoveries and learning alongside the children.
We are an Enviroschool
The Enviroschools programme supports children and young people to plan, design and implement sustainability actions that are important to them and their communities.
The programme provides pathways from early childhood through primary, intermediate and secondary school and beyond. Through our collaborative approach of building strong relationships and sharing information, we are growing a collective puna mātauranga or pool of knowledge.
Enviroschools is supported by a national team, in partnership with nearly 100 national and regional partners, including the majority of New Zealand’s councils. Facilitators from these partner organisations work with a suite of resources to progress the sustainability journey.
To find out more about Enviroschools please visit the website.
CONTACT PUKEKOHE CENTRAL KINDERGARTEN
HOURS
FULL DAY
8.00am – 5.00pm | Mon – Fri
SIX HOUR SESSION
9.00am – 3.00pm | Mon – Fri
TESTIMONIALS
“The whole culture of the centre feels amazing. I completed quite a few visits before doing first drop off and I never had any concerns. In fact the opposite, all the teachers are so consistent in their approach, they are respectful to the children, they are interested in the children and the whanau, they are so welcoming, they get to know the kids at an individual level. All the activities they do – gardening, different inside craft things to do, there is always variety. My son loves going there.”
“Large creative space for my child to explore, run, play and create in. On our first spot visit staff genuinely looked like they cared about the children and had pride in their workplace. And I still see that daily. They went out of their way to talk to us which was lovely.”
“First impressions were how warm it felt, the teaching team were so friendly and we loved the outdoor area. My son also ran straight out to play, we had visited 4 other centres prior and this one just felt right.”
“Based on recommendation from parents we knew who [had] attended the same daycare as us and had made the move, the ease of location, and the visit we attended with the Head Teacher. The 30 hour offer is also a huge advantage to our family, as we have more than one child under 5.”