Puddleducks Nursery & Preschool – New Plymouth
‘Puddleducks’ philosophy is to provide a nurturing and caring environment for all children’, says Pip Davidson, one of the founders of Puddleducks. ‘Therefore, we work with families and the children to make sure that their learning journey is individualised’.
The family-owned and locally-operated business opened in 2000 and has grown into five beautiful centres filled with passionate teachers and happy tamariki who feel comfortable and confident in exploring the world around them.
“We believe that children need choice, so we have provided lots and lots of different opportunities for them to explore their environment, making sure that there are ample resources so that all children will find something exciting to do.”
By providing choice, Puddleducks recognises that children are capable beings, with the ability to make decisions about their own learning and exploration. This way, children are empowered and are affirmed as individuals and encouraged to learn with and alongside others (which are goals of Te Whāriki, New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum). Empowering environments are needed to provide realistic and empowering choices. That’s where Play‘n’Learn comes in.
The Puddleducks and Play‘n’Learn teams have been working together since 2000. Pip and her team have always worked with Play‘n’Learn because “they listen to us, they take on our feedback, they take on our ideas, but what we really like too is they also come up with ideas and push us out of our comfort zone.”
The centre situated in Western New Plymouth, Whaler’s Gate, was previously a large congregational building, so the teams needed to work together, and with an architect, to make the vision of a homely child-like environment become a reality.
Licenced for 75 children over four rooms based on age and stage of development, they acknowledge care rituals as valuable learning opportunities. Puddleducks also aims to provide an environment that promotes a healthy, peaceful, and sustainable world. They have integrated sustainability education throughout the four rooms, creating benefits for their whole community and ecosystem. When you walk into the centre and out into their outdoor space, you feel the love for the natural world, and, you feel at home.
Puddleducks emphasises quality through their inviting and modern environments and highly trained, qualified, and passionate ECE teachers. They base their pedagogy around attachment theory and primary care, tailoring to the individual age groups. Their pre-schoolers are encouraged to explore, run, jump, climb, build, paint, and become in-tune with the world around them, and the environment they’ve created here in New Plymouth allows them to do so confidently.
“I would recommend Play‘n’Learn to anyone who is refurbishing a centre or building a new centre’, Pip says. They are ‘particularly good if people don’t necessarily have their own ideas’.
Pip adds that the Play‘n’Learn design team are great for all, even people who ‘have their own ideas but don’t know how to bring them to life. Play‘n’Learn, and the design team can definitely do that.
