About us

Parnell Trust acquired the St Johns centre in November 2016. Since then, we have made comprehensive changes, including to the curriculum and teaching staff, introducing Gold Healthy Heart Award-winning meals and snacks, and renovating the centre's building and grounds. We invite you to take a look at photos of our centre from our Facebook albums.

Our new centre accepts children aged from three months to five years old and offers a warm, stimulating and fun environment where your baby or pre-schooler will be nurtured and cared for by our experienced and qualified teaching team.

The boutique centre is licensed for only 26 children, including up to 16 under-twos. Babies and toddlers have a separate area where they can safely and confidently explore and grow. The huge outdoor play area provides a safe and exciting environment for children. 

St Johns Early Childhood Centre is located close to main arterial routes to be perfect for parents commuting from Auckland's Eastern suburbs. We're in a residential street just 500m from the St Johns / College Roads roundabout and 1.5km from the Glen Innes shops. The centre is also accessible by public transport, on a bus route to the Glenn Innes shops.

Our philosophy

Our aim at St Johns Early Childhood Centre is to provide an enriching environment where children and families feel valued, respected and empowered. We are committed to forming lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with whanau, the community and the planet, in accordance with the Treaty of Waitangi. We embrace all of our children, whanau and teaching team to form a warm, rich and diverse group of learners reflective of our community. 

We believe in the benefit of family/whanau working in partnership with staff to ensure their input is valued and their aspirations for their child are respected and fostered. 

We offer an emergent curriculum in line with Te Whariki (the National Early Childhood Framework of Aotearoa / New Zealand) that encourages and empowers children to learn holistically and through free play and alongside their peers and teachers. 

We believe in the importance of respect for our bodies, our peers, our teachers and our families as well as our environment and our planet Earth. This is promoted through our ongoing Green Kids Programme. 

We believe when an attitude of mutual respect is fostered, children are empowered to have confidence in their individual identity. Through building and maintaining positive and purposeful relationships, we are able to support individual learning and development and an emergent curriculum. 

We believe that every child is individual and acknowledge their strengths and interests by allowing them the time they need to explore, investigate and discover the wider world. 

At St Johns Early Childhood Centre we truly believe that children are confident and competent learners.  We encourage an environment of exploration, experimentation and calculated risk. While our teachers are here to support, encourage and scaffold we believe that children are the driving force in their own learning and in turn encourage learning for now and in the future.