Sport Waitakere

Waitakere is home to 225 early childhood centres and Healthy Families Waitakere and Sport Waitakere convened early childhood stakeholders to collectively build teacher capability in physical activity and healthy eating.

The Heart Foundation, Auckland Regional Public Health Service, Sport Waitakere, He Oranga Poutama, Gravida Healthy Start Workforce, Auckland District Health Board and Water Safe Auckland delivered a series of workshops attracting educators from across the Auckland region. 70 centres (200+ educators) attended and many made significant changes to their teaching practices to positively influence the health and wellbeing of under 5’s.

Learning Steps Childcare in Glendene enhanced a number of their active play resources and created new activities after attending several of the workshops. They also introduced physical activity sessions that cater to other teachers, children and whanau.

“The activities not only promote healthy minds and bodies, but create curiosity and fun in the learning environment. Our half hour exercise sessions allow us to reach out to our community for better living”, said Centre Manager Ashmeeta Sharma.

Teaching staff have found that the new resources have added value to their sessions around play. Teacher Nalina Nand instantly saw the benefits for children.

“I loved the Funskills Under 2’s workshop, it was hands on and visual. The children are more active since the new resources have been introduced”, she says.

Teachers from Ranui Kindergarten applied their learnings from a He Pi Ka Rere workshop to re-design play activities using traditional Māori knowledge and practices.

Teacher, Tui Cusack, said they were inspired to apply a cultural lens and created a display for visitors and whanau to see the activities.

“The teaching team looked at how we could offer He Pi Ka Rere in our setting so we put what we learnt into practice and the children responded well. We then created a display to celebrate this within the kindergarten.” she says.

There are more workshops in the pipeline for 2018. Sport Waitakere are delivering workshops on Physical Literacy for Under 5s and Funskills for 0-2 year olds. Click here to find out more.

http://www.sportwaitakere.co.nz/programmes-resources/young-people/under-5s-1