Playcentre

Playcentre is an early childhood education organisation which operates parent-led early childhood education centres throughout New Zealand.

Playcentre is unique to New Zealand and offers early childhood education for children from birth to 6 years. Playcentre is a parent co-operative which means it is run by the parents of the children who attend. Playcentres are grouped into regional associations of at least 5 centres. There are 62 associations that make up the New Zealand Playcentre Federation.

The Playcentre movement started during the Second World War as a means of sharing childcare among mothers to enable them to go into the workforce to help with the war effort. The first such Playcentre was established in 1942 in the Wellington suburb of Karori. There are currently some 511 centres around New Zealand with Playcentre being the dominant provider of early childhood education in rural areas.

Playcentres run play sessions of about 2.5 hours. A Playcentre may run up to 10 such sessions per week, and any child can attend up to 5 sessions per week. Playcentre champions parents as first and best teachers and through Playcentre's free adult education programme parents are able to learn alongside their children. Playcentre's aim is that families learn and grow together with other families and a network of life long friendships are formed.

Playcentres are licensed and chartered early childhood education providers with the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Independent research and audits by the Education Review Office confirm the quality of Playcentre's programmes.

Playcentre was instrumental in introducing the concept of education through play and through child-initiated activities to the early childhood setting in New Zealand. This philosophy has since been adopted throughout all New Zealand early childhood education centres through the New Zealand national curriculum for early childhood education, Te Whaariki. Playcentre remains a champion of child-led non-structured play as the best form of education in early childhood.

Playcentre's other core philosophies include a commitment to mixed-age play and an emphasis on the socio-cultural model of learning which posits that a child learns best when surrounded by trusted members of his or her community.

Famous playcentre alumni include New Zealand's first female Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Jenny Shipley, New Zealand's first female Governor General, Dame Catherine Tizard, the Olympic gold medallists, Caroline Evers-Swindell and Georgina Evers-Swindell, and a host of sporting, media, business and political luminaries.