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Welcome from our Avonhead Centre Manager
Ginni Sohal
Kia ora, Namaste, I am Ginni, the Centre Manager here at Busy Bees Avonhead. I’m originally from India and have been teaching since 2011. I’ve taught across secondary, primary, and early childhood. There’s something really special about being with young children every single day. My favourite parts of the day are group times with the Pūkeko room and care moments with the Tui's and Tiny's. Those moments just make everything worthwhile. I feel really lucky to lead such an amazing multicultural team. The passion and dedication they bring every day genuinely moves me, and I don’t take that for granted.
I also love getting to know our whānau, taking the time to really listen and understand what they need, and working together to help both the children and their families thrive. We have such a beautiful multicultural community at our centre, and that is something I genuinely treasure. I love learning about different cultures and the values that families bring with them, it really enriches everything we do and reminds me how much we can learn from each other. Advocating for our tamariki and seeing them succeed is what drives me every day.
Our Team
At Busy Bees Avonhead, our committed team are dedicated to providing the best possible care and education for your children. We foster an environment of support and respect, not only for each other but also for the tamariki and whānau, and we believe that it is this open communication and cooperation that contributes to having calm and contented children. With a shared desire for best practice, our team is passionate about creating a positive and enriching experience for every child under our care.
Our Community
We place emphasis on building strong community connections that extend beyond our centre. Holding regular parent evenings provides an opportunity for open communication and meaningful engagement between kaiako and families. We also actively engage with our local community through various events and drives, supporting organisations such as the Salvation Army. These activities within the local Avonhead community help to instil the values of compassion and social responsibility in our children. These are also cultivated within our early education centre through tuakana-teina relationships, where older tamariki take on a nurturing role towards younger tamariki. This approach not only strengthens connections among the children but also promotes empathy, leadership, and a supportive learning environment for all.
Tui Room & Tiny Tui Room | Our Nursery
Our Tui and Tiny Tui Rooms form our Nursery, offering a nurturing, calm, and responsive environment where our pēpi and toddlers feel safe, loved, and supported. Our kaiako are intentional in every care moment-feeding, nappy changes, sleep routines, and transitions are all seen as meaningful opportunities for connection, trust-building, and learning.
We encourage babies to explore and embrace a little mess during mealtimes, including practising with their spoons for our older tamariki. These experiences help build confidence, strengthen hand–eye coordination, and foster early independence.
Our programme balances thoughtful teaching moments with rich sensory and play-based experiences. Messy play, age-appropriate art, a beautiful outdoor environment, a cosy sleep space, and musical mat times all support the holistic development of our youngest learners. Through these experiences, our pēpi and toddlers develop early language, social skills, creativity, curiosity, and confidence.
Our Nursery truly offers a warm, engaging, and enriching start to every child’s learning journey.
Pukeko Room
Our Pukeko Room welcomes tamariki aged 3 to 6 years, offering a thoughtfully designed learning environment that inspires exploration and creativity. Children enjoy a range of intentionally set-up areas such as messy play, art and craft, family play, reading spaces, construction, loose parts, puzzles, and activities that support early literacy and numeracy.
Our focus in this room is to foster independence, strengthen social and emotional skills, and support tamariki as they prepare for their transition to kura. A special highlight of our programme is our visits to the local kura for tamariki aged 4 and over, helping build confidence, familiarity, and a sense of readiness for school.
We are committed to nurturing confident and capable learners who lead their own learning with curiosity, enjoyment, and excitement. Our programme includes engaging mat times, music sessions, group activities, and intentional learning themes planned each term to inspire growth and development.
Whānau are valued partners in our learning journey. We involve you in our planning through conversations, events, and regular discussions about your child’s learning and progress.
Kea School Readiness Programme | For Our 4 Year Olds
Our Kea Programme is a specialised daily learning group designed for our 4-year-olds, running every morning (and sometimes twice a day) for a focused 1.5-hour session. This programme provides intentional, structured learning experiences that help prepare tamariki for a smooth and confident transition to school.
A highlight of this programme, is connecting tamariki to the local primary schools Avonhead, Russley and Riccarton with regular regular excursions. These visits help familiarise tamariki with the school environment, build confidence and support strong relationships with our local learning community.
During each session, children are encouraged and supported to:
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Develop early literacy and numeracy skills.
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Listen carefully and follow instructions.
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Share their ideas, knowledge, and news in an affirming, classroom-like setting.
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Enjoy stories and practise retelling them in their own words.
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Recognise letters and sounds and learn to write their own name.
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Strengthen social skills-taking turns, cooperating, and problem-solving together.
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Explore creativity through art and hands-on activities.
Through meaningful, engaging, and intentional learning experiences, our Kea Programme empowers children to make choices, follow their interests, and grow as confident, capable learners - ready to take their next big step into school.
Strong, Culturally Responsive Practice
We believe in celebrating the diversity of cultures by actively recognising and embracing special days from various cultures represented by our centre. We honour each child's family heritage by displaying whānau photos within our centre, as well celebrating traditional dress, allowing children to express their cultural identities with pride. We also encourage children to explore the meanings and origins of their names, fostering a sense of self-awareness and cultural understanding. Above all, our centre is a place of belonging, inclusiveness, and warm hospitality. We promote an environment where children can freely speak their own languages, fostering effective communication and deep connections between themselves and their teachers.
We are proud to be a lunchbox centre. This promotes independence as well as encourages self-help skills in preparation for school. We encourage families to make healthy food choices and ensure their child’s pouaka kai (lunch box) meets centre guidelines as well as Ministry of Health criteria for Early Learning Services.
Our dedicated centre team is currently striving towards the New Zealand Heart Foundation Tohu Manawa Ora | Rito Healthy Heart Award.
Physical Education
We are proud to offer our very own Aihe/MOVE programme, designed specifically to support the needs of our community and whānau. A small group of children take part in MOVE sessions two to three times each week, with each session focusing on developing physical strength and coordination through sports, structured games, obstacle courses, and purposeful extensions.
Each participating child receives a stamp in their personal MOVE passport, and at the end of every cycle, three tamariki are acknowledged for their outstanding participation. Alongside physical development, the programme also nurtures important social skills such as turn-taking, waiting, teamwork, and growing confidence.
MOVE is delivered across both rooms, with activities thoughtfully tailored to each child’s age, stage, and individual abilities to ensure meaningful and inclusive learning for all.
Curriculum
We are committed to follow the aspirations of the New Zealand National ECE Curriculum, Te Whāriki. Te Whāriki envisages kaiako 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, right from their early exploration of the world around them, through to preparation for school.
Our Programmes
Bee Curious, our Busy Bees Curriculum Framework, has been created to guide and inspire kaiako in supporting tamariki through rich, interconnected learning experiences. Built on the strong foundation of Te Whāriki, it reflects the principles of Aotearoa New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum and the aspirations we hold for our children as they grow.
Our MOVE programme deliberately sets out physical activities that give children the opportunity to learn, practice and master physical skills whilst developing their resilience, perseverance, patience, co-ordination, gross-motor skills, teamwork and much more, all while having loads of fun!
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