Curriculum

At Evolve, we are firm believers that a child’s work is play. Throughout each day our children are presented with invaluable opportunities to direct and lead their own learning, based around their current interests.

Free play includes unstructured, child-initiated activities that allow children to develop their imaginations while exploring and experiencing the world around them. Spontaneous play comes naturally from children’s curiosity, discovery and enthusiasm.

Our centres offer the ideal balance of child-led and teacher-led experiences. Each day our expert teachers will set up an exciting and challenging array of experiences to engage your little one and build their skills in a fun and supportive environment.

With children varying in their abilities and needs cognitively, socially, emotionally and physically, having a flexible approach to teaching and learning – including free and guided play - is essential. This provides well-balanced information for assessment and planning.

A child’s emotional wellbeing is our top priority, and that’s why we practice primary caregiving, particularly with our youngest age groups. By allocating a special teacher to each child, children are able to form secure attachments, develop trust and build confidence. These are the foundations all children need to thrive.

We value and respect cultural identity and recognise and celebrate New Zealand’s dual heritage. Our commitment to te Tiriti o Waitangi guides our tikanga and te reo Māori practices for an authentic commitment to Te Ao Māori.

The natural process of early childhood learning and development begins with the body. Movement primes the brain for learning, fostering the neural pathways that form the foundations for cognitive, physical, emotional and spiritual learning. Physical activity builds the body for health and wellbeing, the brain for learning and the confidence to face and conquer challenges.

Evolve’s purpose-built early learning centres feature fantastic outdoor spaces where children can swing, climb, run, jump, and build their physical skills. From dancing and yoga, to playball and bike riding, our indoor and outdoor physical experiences are designed so your child can have fun while developing all the skills they need to thrive.

Ask any child under 5 what their favourite activity is, and the chances are, they’ll shout out “water play”! At Evolve, our teachers enjoy this almost as much as our children, and during the summer months many happy times are spent sprinkling, sloshing, squirting and splashing. Waterplay gives many opportunities to develop fine and gross motor skills across the ages. Water is a natural material that provides hours of fun, development and learning opportunities. Children benefit from the relaxing and repetitive nature of scooping, pouring and running their hands through the water.

Messy play gives children the opportunity to experience a wide range of sensory experiences such as finger paint, slime and gloop. Sensory play supports language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem solving and social interaction. Squishing and squeezing can help pre-writing skills and gives children the freedom to explore and have fun.

What child doesn’t enjoy a trip to the beach or having fun in the sandpit? Sand play is fantastic in aiding  development by improving the coordinative, interactional and creative aspects of your child’s brain. Sand play promotes creativity and imagination, brings delight and develops social competence. The repetition of filling up a bucket and tipping it out over and over is about perseverance and skill. Children learn strategies for active exploration, thinking and reasoning. Sand play even helps develop basic math and science concepts such as exploring, estimating, experimenting, measuring and constructing.

Introducing children to music at an early age can kick start their learning and offer lifelong benefits. Listening to music and participating in musical experiences forges neural connections which will help your child in almost every area of their learning, including rhythms and rhymes, language development, maths and reading. An integral part of our programme, music also provides an opportunity to dance, sing and learn about different cultures.

Family and dramatic play provides invaluable opportunities for children to express their feelings, ignite their imagination, and build empathy and understanding. By acting out different roles, children learn valuable real life skills such as communication, sharing, and caring for others.

Dramatic play is a great way for children to learn to self-regulate their emotions and actions. It is a type of play where children accept and assign roles, and then act them out. They break through the walls of reality, pretend to be someone or something different from themselves. Children have the freedom to express their feelings through dramatic play, through toys, props and materials.

The building area. Connecting and transportation is on a rise in our whare so we really needed to re-think this one on how we can accommodate the varying interest and ideas of our children to build on what they know and help them refine their working theories about the physical and wider world they live in. So it made sense to us from observations that we needed to relocate the animal setup and create what is now the construction influence scene surrounded with New Zealand signs and real-life images. We added work helmets, levellers, safety gloves binoculars and will continue to add more resources so they can role play as they build together. Big space here to fill with their own creations.