The Rumpus Room Play. Learn. Grow.

Our Proven Approach

With very experienced staff and a clear philosophy, The Rumpus Room offers an exceptional and proven choice to allow your child to play, learn and grow. To support our philosophies we have developed a play based, project centred programme that allows children to explore their own interests and develop a greater understanding of the way the world around them works.

We understand the importance of creating respectful interactions between the child and teachers, where the child is an active participant. With this in mind we promote an environment for our children which allows them to be curious, investigate, make decisions and problem solve to make sense of their world and their place in it.

Children learn through play and exploration and our programme supports this approach. Our children have access to exciting and challenging resources that provide them with the space to explore, have adventures and daydream. Play. Learn. Grow. Help your child transition successfully to school and find their place in the world.

We are greatly inspired by the work of Dr Emmi Pikler and Madga Gerber who founded the RIE philosophy (Resources for Infant Educarers). The main principle of our philosophy surrounds the importance of creating respectful interactions between the child and teachers – interactions where the child is an active participant. This means treating the child as we as adults would like to be treated by talking as well as listening to the child and getting to know them for the individual that they are and acknowledging their different likes, dislikes and interests. Our environment is very calm, relaxing and peaceful which creates opportunities for children to explore freely. Our resources are very open ended and natural and can be used in a variety of different ways as children spend long periods of time discovering more about the world around them. The environment also allows the child the time, the space and the support to be themselves as they develop an awareness of who they are as a person. Infants and toddlers are encouraged to move freely and to discover new positions and experiment by themselves. Our young infants are placed on the floor on blankets on their backs as we believe in the importance of the child discovering how to move onto their tummies and new positions on their own. When infants are lying on their backs, they are strengthening their back, arms, legs and neck and preparing themselves for natural movements which they will move into when they are ready and at their own pace. Toddlers are encouraged to work things out for themselves with support from adults such as climbing on and off the bikes.

To support our philosophies we have developed a play based, project centred, programme that allows children to explore their own interests and develop a greater understanding of the way the world around them works. Our programme is based on Te Whaariki (the woven mat) which is the national early childhood curriculum developed by The New Zealand Ministry of Education. Te Whaariki is woven from the principles of: empowerment; holistic development; family and community and relationships and from the five strands of learning and development: well being; belonging; contribution; communication, and exploration. Te Whaariki aspires for children to grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society. Toddlers are inquisitive and curious about their world around them.  They learn through their senses and through an open ended environment full of opportunities to play and explore.  Having teachers who know the children well helps them build trusting and secure relationships with a sense of belonging in their environment.  Our environment has many open ended resources so our children have opportunities to discover, create and fully explore.

As with our toddlers our play based programme is based on Te Whaariki and we also draw on contemporary educational philosophies to complement Te Whaariki. We aim to provide a program that recognizes the wider community outside the centre walls – the natural environment and the people within it. Through being a part of this wider community children can really develop a sense of belonging and a greater understanding of the culture within New Zealand. We promote an environment for our pre schoolers which allows them to be curious, investigate, make decisions and problem solve to make sense of their world and their place in it. Our pre-schoolers are encouraged to learn life skills through hands on experiences, exploring their community and being involved in project based play.

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