Infants and Toddlers Care
We have taken the time to present you with the best information we could about our Pēpi area.
ENVIRONMENT AND RELATIONSHIPS
Daycare for Infants and Toddlers
The Pēpi area is a calm and inviting environment, where relationships are at the heart of all practices.
Through key teachers and a small group size, tamariki form close and trusting relationships based on love, respect, acceptance, and kindness.
Key teachers also provide an environment where each tamaiti is seen, heard, and known.
We follow the natural rhythms of each tamaiti, where unrushed and flexible experiences are individualised to their needs, strengths, and interests. These are all at the heart of everything we do.
What is Quality Care for Infants and Toddlers?
The well-being of tamariki in daycare is dependent on the quality of care they are receiving. But what do quality care and best practice look like? The next few sections will be laid out to answer just that.
Small Group Size
We have a maximum of nine tamariki per day, which ensures that all kaiako get to know your child well.
Within a small group, it’s easier for tamariki to have and hold the attention of the kaiako, form friendships with other tamariki, hear each other talk, and engage in lots of shared interactions and collaborations.
Lilliput Preschool is a small and personal centre, this is vital in developing secure relationships.
Through responsive and respectful relationships with all tamariki, kaiako know each child well, their strengths, interests, and preferences.
This also flows into developing relationships with whānau.
Developing a warm, trusting, supportive relationship with whānau is always important in early childhood and especially in the early years, as whānau and kaiako work collaboratively to provide the best experiences possible for their child here at Lilliput.
Low Kaiako-to-Tamaiti Ratios
Having an excellent kaiako-to-tamaiti ratio ensures we meet tamariki needs for secure relationships, where kaiako have time and space to really get to know the tamariki and whānau, where they speak and understand each other’s language.
Due to our quality ratios, we are able to take time to slow down and enjoy your tamaiti, providing them with an environment that is both calm and peaceful.
When interacting and doing routines with your tamaiti we ensure we pay full attention to them, as this ensures your tamaiti feels valued and this is how we build and maintain a strong relationship with them.
RELATIONSHIPS
Key Teachers
Lilliput prides itself on relationship-based teaching, therefore key teachers are vital for quality care and education. Having a key teacher involves having the same teacher doing the ‘routine’ aspects of your tamaiti day.
This enables consistency and familiarity for your tamaiti and a chance for them to build a special bond with a particular teacher. Sometimes key teachers are away so your tamaiti will also have a secondary key teacher who will also know and understand your tamaiti well, including their individual routines.
Our key teacher system is based on research, which states that intelligence is not an inherited gene, rather is gained from the baby’s experiences in their first thousand days. During this stage, our brains are wiring themselves for the rest of our lives, so whatever we are exposed to in the first thousand days is how our brain will be wired.
This is why it is crucial for your baby to form a secure attachment with their key teacher, where they have plenty of opportunity for cuddles, one on one conversations, and where they build a close and responsive relationship based on trust, respect, acceptance, love, and kindness.
It is through these relationships with you and us, the brain of you tamaiti is being wired for a complex and social world, rich in language and endless opportunities, thus increasing their potential for lifelong learning. During care moments the key teacher of your tamaiti will ensure they slow down and enjoy these times with your tamaiti as these are the most important interactions for developing a trusting and respectful relationship.
The key teacher of your tamaiti will invite them to be actively engaged and involved in their routines by including your tamaiti every step of the way. Therefore, encouraging a cooperative relationship, where the kaiako and tamaiti are in partnership together.
LOW TEACHER TURNOVER
Qualified Teachers
At Lilliput, we constantly have over 80% trained teachers, and more often than not we pride ourselves in having 100% trained teachers each day. Our teachers are dedicated to keeping up to date with current research-based on early childhood education.
This ensures we are continuously providing a challenging, nurturing, and supportive environment for all tamariki. Through our research, we are able to make informed decisions to ensure we are always providing the best education and outcomes for all tamariki.
For tamariki to grow to their full potential, they need trusting and familiar adults. Building relationships is crucial for tamariki and the number of people that a tamaiti forms an attachment with must be protected and limited. For this to happen Centres must retain their passionate and dedicated teachers. Lilliput is a happy and supportive place to work and provides not only our whānau but kaiako with a home-away-from-home.
We pride ourselves in low kaiako turnover and do our absolute best to protect our smallest whānau members by ensuring our infants and toddlers only have kaiako whom they know working in the Pēpi area.
MAKING EDUCATION FUN
Play-Based Learning
Te Whāriki, our Early Childhood Curriculum, is a play-based curriculum. Lilliput Preschool also believes uninterrupted play is the best way for tamariki to learn, where tamariki have the agency to create and follow their own ideas, strengths, and interests.
This way tamariki build upon their knowledge and skills, in areas and ways that excite them while being supported by our knowledgeable teachers. Uninterrupted play allows tamariki to achieve milestones in their own time and in their own way.
The role of Lilliput teachers is critical to successful play-based learning, and here all of our teachers recognise the robust learning which play creates.
Our teachers ensure that tamariki have plenty of opportunities to explore, experiment, discover, build relationships, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways.
Our teachers thoughtfully and strategically create environments that offer rich and engaging play opportunities, while catering to diverse interests, tamariki prior knowledge, skills, and strengths.
Teachers are also mindful to ensure they are supporting and stretching their thinking by sensitively engaging in meaningful learning conversations with tamariki that stretch their thinking and encouraging social skills, mixed with endless amounts of movement, music and laughter is the basis of our infant and toddler’s learning.
NO RESTRICTIONS
Freedom of Movement
Based on research our tamariki should be given the freedom to move their bodies how they like. With this in mind here at Lilliput Preschool, we believe a tamaiti should be given the opportunity to move freely. For this reason, we do not use high chairs or other items that restrict tamariki ability to move freely.
If your tamaiti can not climb into our chairs by themselves, they will sit on their key teacher’s knee when eating. We also try to refrain from putting a baby in a position in which they can’t get into themselves.
Positions such as sitting/propping up, placing them on climbing structures or the slide, tricks, and standing your tamaiti. However, if your baby is used to these positions from home life, please feel free to discuss it with us as we will always ensure we meet your aspirations for your tamaiti.
Playful learning is the magic that takes place when we meld a child’s sense of joy and wonder with thoughtfully planned learning experiences.
Playful Learning: Develop Your Child’s Sense of Joy and Wonder by Mariah Bruehl
Communication
Portfolios
Each tamaiti has their own portfolio at Lilliput. The portfolio will include regular learning stories that document the interests, learning, and development of your tamaiti.
You are welcome to take the portfolio of your tamaiti home at any time to look through yourself or to show whānau and friends. Lilliput also uses an online portfolio system.
Through the online portfolio, you and other whānau members (Grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc) can log on and access the learning stories of your tamaiti.
This also provides whānau with an easy way to add feedback and comments. Feedback and comments about learning and development of your tamaiti at home are always appreciated.
Sleep Room
In the sleep room, we have calm, relaxing music continuously playing in the background. Your tamaiti will have their own cot or mattress that they sleep on. This helps to develop a feeling of security and belonging, as your tamaiti knows their own special place for sleeping. When going to sleep, their key teacher will cuddle and snuggle them into bed, following the routines they are used to at home. The teacher will stay in the sleep room with your tamaiti until they have drifted off to sleep, then they will be physically checked every 5 to 10 minutes.
Notebooks
We encourage you to bring a notebook with you, each day your tamaiti attends. Each day we will write about how your tamaiti day has been. We will include how they have slept, eaten, activities they have enjoyed, and any other appropriate information from the day. Please feel free to write any messages you have for us in their notebook. As well as the notebook, we will also communicate with you verbally, at the beginning and end of each day. If we are wanting to communicate with you during the day, we have a cell phone in the infant and toddler’s area, which is a quick and easy way for us to communicate. Whānau is always welcome to ring or text us on this phone at any time during the day.
Baby Sign
Language is all about using simple gestures with your tamaiti to allow you to communicate long before they have mastered the intricacies of speech.
The main advantage of baby sign is that it allows our babies to communicate with adults which in turn reduces confusion and frustration. One question which is often asked about baby sign is, won’t teaching Baby Sign Language delay my baby’s speech?
However, studies have proven the opposite to be true. You are never using the sign on its own, it is always accompanied by the spoken word.
Signs can actually aid in the acquisition of language as it requires using a physical movement in connection with a word – this helps ‘cement’ the word in the baby’s memory until they have mastered all the skills necessary to produce speech.
The basic baby signs we will use will be based around meal times and will include; more, finished, drink, help, eat. If you have any questions please feel free to talk to any of the Pēpi area kaiako.
Sun Smart
Sunhats
Lilliput provides a sunhat for each tamaiti with their name embroidered on the front, please let us know what colour sunhat you would like.
Sunscreen
We apply sunscreen between the months of September to April. Tamariki get sunscreen applied at around 10 am and again at 2 pm each day, depending upon their routines. Let us know if your tamaiti is allergic to certain brands of sunscreen.