141 Burwood Road, Burwood, Christchurch 8083
Located in Burwood, nearby natural reserves and parks, Ready Steady Play offers excellent care & education for local families in the community.
Ready Steady Play philosophy and practices are based on current research on the topics of teaching, learning, and child development; it is strongly inspired by the RIE Educaring Approach, based on respect and trust for the child.
Our centre is open from 7am to 6pm and caters for children aged 0-6yrs, holding a license for a maximum of 65 children. Your child will love our well laid out centre, with four separate rooms, perfectly catering to each unique stage of your child’s development. This ensures that your child receives meaningful care, as well as personalised learning and development, tailored specifically to their needs, providing equal opportunities to ensure your child gets the best start in life.
Parents love the rich sense of community, and our curriculum at Ready Steady Play reflects our philosophy for strong relationships. It values input from parents, educators, whānau, children and our wonderful community.
Our Team
Our educators are wonderful, passionate and amazing people, who have been selected based on their experience within the Early Childhood field, their professional knowledge of teaching and nurturing young children, and their philosophy of education and knowledge of child development.
At Ready Steady Play our qualified, experienced educators are warm, welcoming and fun. They support tamariki in engaging in open-ended experiences, with respect for, and trust in, tamariki to be initiators, explorers and self learners. Our bicultural practice and respectful care for infants and toddlers is a great part of our practice. We respect children’s need for freedom to move and uninterrupted time to explore and facilitate this through a calm and unhurried environment.
We value professional development, and encourage our team to participate in a variety of courses, in order to grow and keep up to date with new developments in the educational field.
Curriculum
We are committed to follow the aspirations of the New Zealand National ECE Curiculum, Te Whāriki, “For 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 envisages kaiako (educators) in early learning settings working in partnership with parents, whānau and community to realise this vision. The expectation is that, in their early years, children will experience a curriculum that empowers them as lifelong learners.
Te Whāriki supports this work by providing a framework of principles and strands.
The principles are the foundations of curriculum decision making and a guide for every aspect of pedagogy and practice.
The strands are 5 areas of learning and development, where the focus is on supporting children to develop the capabilities they need as confident and competent learners.
We trust and respect each child as fully capable and competent human beings, initiators, explorers and self-learners.
Each setting takes these principles and strands and, in partnership with parents and whānau, uses them to ‘weave’ a curriculum whāriki (mat) that is specifically designed for their children.
Q. What is included in your fees?
A. On top of the exceptional personalised care and early learning provided at Ready Steady Play Preschool, our fees include portfolio books and Storypark.
Q. Do you offer 20 hours free?
A. Yes, Ready Steady Play Preschool is a government approved ECE programme. Children aged 3-5 may be eligible for up to 6 hours care a day with a total of 20 Hours ECE per week.
Q. Do you have a school readiness programme?
A. We do not have a formal school readiness programme, our children learn these skills through exploring their environment and the programme. Educators are intentional in their provision of experiences and the environment to allow opportunities through play to develop skills for school.
Q. What is the settling process?
A. We refrain from setting a limit of transition visits and approach this with an individualised approached and encourage our parents to bring their children in for as many visits as they feel comfortable with, and we are very flexible with this.
Q. What are your opening hours?
A. We are open all year round, Monday – Friday 7.00am – 6.00pm, including school holidays and the Christmas/New Year period for your convenience. We’re closed statutory days only.
Q. What do I need to bring?
A. We ask that parents provide a packed lunchbox with nutritious lunch and healthy snacks for the duration of your childs day. Please also provide named clothing, suitable for the season, included 2 changes.
"Love it! The kids get to be kids, make friends and get a real sense of belonging, the educators are awesome and go out of their way to build real meaningful relationships with the children and their families."
"Both of my children went to Ready Steady Play Preschool. The staff have always been very warm, welcoming, and friendly. They made me feel at ease and my children learnt so much and bonded well with their peers and educators. I would highly recommended this great preschool to friends and family. We miss this place very much. Thank you for looking after my children so well."
"True, caring, genuine staff, so vibrant & welcoming! 2 of my 3 kids attended here when we moved to the area. I had viewed a couple others & this one was the only one where I really had no doubts. Beautiful people, beautiful kids."
