Welcome to The Grange A home away from home
The Grange Early Learning centre is a small, homely centre catering to a maximum of 37 children. It is operated and managed by a fully registered and trained Early Childhood teacher with 20 years of teaching and managing experience. We are the only centre in a 3-kilometre radius to receive the highest ranking from the Ministry of Education’s review office. The Grange has an outstanding 25-year reputation and is well known in the community. We pride ourselves in creating a home away from home, not just your children but also for you. We do this through various parent events throughout the year.
The owner and manager of The Grange knows what it takes to give your child a truly memorable experience filled with joy and discovery. Over the span of her impressive 20-year career, she has worked in a variety of both small and large centres, using her acquired knowledge and skills to develop her own set of unique programmes and routines, each catered to your child’s individual needs.
Here is what makes The Grange different from the rest:
We have a maximum of 8 children under the age of 2
In other childcare centres, most rooms for children under the age of 2 generally have 12 – 15 babies and toddlers. Unfortunately, these children are often left to their own devices, regardless of the number of teachers that are appointed to supervise these rooms. This gap in supervision is particularly worrisome, especially if the centre’s outdoor area is easily accessible.
A crowded room of young children also means that their sleep area will always being used, resulting in the disruption of your child’s routine (i.e.: your child will most likely be woken up whenever another child is put to bed or wakes from a nap).
The overcrowding of these rooms also poses a significant challenge for the centre’s teachers, who simply don’t have the time to learn about each child’s needs or interests. Primary caregiving is often implemented to solve this problem, but the results are far from perfect. What happens to your child before or after their primary caregiver’s shift has ended? What happens when their primary caregiver is away for the day or has left the centre for good? From experience, this solution causes more issues and has the potential to make the problem it’s supposed to solve even worse.
We don’t have a separate room for 2-year-olds
Having a separate room for 2-year-olds may sound great on paper, but in practice, fails spectacularly. At the age of two, children begin to observe how others around them behave and consequently try to mimic the perceived behaviour. This is an age of intense learning and exploration, so it is crucial for children to emulate the right actions. Rooms that consist only of 2-year-old children (or children who have just turned three) are the most chaotic, as these children are witnessing and then copying unfavourable behaviour such as biting, pulling, pushing, putting objects in their mouths, and throwing toys.
At The Grange, we believe that mixed age groups are the best for creating positive role models. When two-year-old children interact with 4-year-old children, they begin to demonstrate more mature behaviour, which results in positive outcomes for all our children.
The Grange’s qualified owner works with the children daily and is here because she cares
Very few childcare centre owners are Early Childhood qualified. Throughout her 19 years of experience, The Grange’s owner has seen first-hand how a lack of knowledge in the field can negatively impact both teachers and children. A qualified childcare manager makes all the difference, as they understand what is needed to make a centre thrive. Only a qualified childcare owner will understand the need to have a second safety gate, have an extra teacher for special circumstances, implement better teacher to child ratios, reduce the number of children per room, etc. Unqualified centre owners simply don’t know what it’s like to work as a teacher, and many of them are not on-site daily, which means that they cannot properly assess a centre’s real needs or apply a budget that will provide quality care for the attending children.
A backyard-style playground
Our outdoor space was designed by a landscape artist who has also been trained in Early Childhood, which means that our playground was designed with children’s need in mind.
Unlike many other centres, The Grange values a natural environment for children. You will notice that we have real grass and plenty of trees – just like your backyard at home. We even have our very own pig that we can feed!
A stable team that is here for all the right reasons
Due to an extreme shortage of trained teachers in Early Childhood, teachers often move from centre to centre, seeking better pay. As a result of this constant teacher turnover, both children and parents end up feeling unsettled and insecure, never quite knowing who their teacher is or how long they will stay at the centre. But at The Grange, we do things differently. The centre’s owner develops strong, lasting relationships with the teachers she works with, treating them as friends more than colleagues or subordinates. She places her teachers’ needs above her own, and in return, asks that they simply do the same for the children. Through this philosophy, she has created job satisfaction and a positive environment where everyone feels respected, valued, appreciated, and genuinely cared for.
