In November we held a small hui at Ao Tawhiti to begin to form connections between the primary and ECE’s members of our Kahui.

Term four is such a busy term so we were lucky to bring together some staff from ChCh East, Ao Tawhiti, Hagley Pre-school and Ara Early Learning Centre.

We began with a guided walk& talk around Ao Tawhiti, followed by general discussion about education in the early years. As we found some common interests this quickly led to a bigger discussion around nature play and forest schools. Both kuras are already using sites in the city for Nature Play and possibly ECEs would be interested in accessing these sites too. Play based learning is an area that all participants at the meeting hold dear and the idea of nature play in the city became something to keep focussing on in 2021.

Other areas of interest that emerged for continuing these early years (ECE & primary) meetings are to build shared understandings of the ‘style and flavour’ of each of the ECEs and kura in our Kahui and to discuss how to support each other and our families during children’s transitions to school.