Ngongotaha ELC winner at Business Awards

Ngongotaha Early Learning Centre took home the top prize in the Healthy Families Rotorua Health and Wellness category at the 2016 Westpac Rotorua Business Excellence Awards.  The team is incredibly excited to receive this honour as a part of our on-going work to improve our communities through the lives of children.

Our journey to success did not happen overnight and we could not have achieved this honour without the support of our community.  Here is a bit of background about Ngongotaha Early Learning Centre, what makes us work and where we hope to see ourselves in the future:

After seeing a need for quality childcare and education in our community we decided to open a childcare centre – on 2nd June 2009 Ngongotaha Early Learning Centre opened. We are a privately-owned family business providing quality care and education to meet the needs of the local and wider communities, with hours that suit working families.

We view our staff and their families as our own extended whanau.  Children and their whanau are made to feel as our own, giving it a real family feel. Many of our staff have positive ties/links within the Ngongotaha Community as they were either born and still living here, or have moved to Ngongotaha.

We have great teacher/children ratios which we believe is the key to excellent quality care.  We maintain an excellent Education Review Office (ERO) Report with a 4 year Very Well Placed report in 2014 which is the highest you can achieve.  We feel it’s not enough to just meet the minimum requirement when it comes to quality care.

Our low staff turnover fosters long term connections for our children and families within our community.  Five staff members have been with us since we opened, which provides continuity to our childrens care and experience.  We have an awesome team that is passionate about providing quality care to our children and is committed to Ngongotaha Early Learning Centre.  Long term staff also fosters teamwork and results in continuity of care for the children.  By offering a stable, nurturing, and stimulating environment, we allow for risk-taking, play, exploration and learning, all whilst having fun interacting with others.

We take pride not only in our quality of care but the resources and building standards.  We have a great nutritional menu and we are known for giving the children healthy and plentiful food; we have gained the Whanau (silver) level of the Healthy Heart Award.  Staff enjoy supporting the children in healthy eating and physical activities, and regularly team up with parents to participate in community walking, running and sports events.

We have started our journey towards sustainability within our centre and are working toward becoming a plastic-free centre.  We recycle our paper/cardboard for Papers 4 Trees programme.  The children grow their vegetables in our garden, feed chickens and explore the community through guided group excursions around town.

We are so excited in this latest achievement and look forward to on-going opportunities to continue to improve and grow our organisation and community.