Playcentre

Early childhood organization in New Zealand
Their mission is stated as "Whānau Tupu Ngātahi Families growing together."

Before 1941 the prevailing philosophy in New Zealand child education was that education did not really start until children entered the formal, disciplinarian, school system. The early beginnings of Playcentre were in Wellington in 1941. The organisation believes that parents are the first and best educators of their children and children learn best when they initiate their learning through play (child initiated play). Within the centres children and adults learn alongside each other, in agreement with the socio cultural model of learning which posits that a child learns best when surrounded by trusted members of their community. Children attend half day sessions, no more than 5 times a week. Children from 0 to 6 years,

Since 2019, Playcentre Aotearoa is a charitable trust. Each association was supported by the national body, The New Zealand Playcentre Federation. All of these entities were amalgamated in 2019. This change will centralise the financial operations of Playcentre in the trust, taking some administrative burden off individual centres and allow Playcentre to remain compliant with Ministry of Education guidelines. Playcentres are chartered early childhood education providers with the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Each Playcentre is subject to audits by the Education Review Office to confirm the quality of Playcentre's programmes. Playcentres are partially funded by the Ministry of Education under the Education and Training Act 2020. Government funding is on a per session basis, and is determined by the number and ages of children, and the number of qualified supervising adults present. Playcentres typically also rely on additional community grants. Since 2000, government policy has trended towards a focus on a qualified teacher led curriculum for ECE providers to be funded. This conflicts with the principle of parent led co operative education — where most parents are not fully trained teachers — resulting in parent led ECE services like Playcentre being "marginalised". To solve this, Playcentre typically provides a facilitator to each centre, who is employed by the trust

Playcentre Education offers the NZQA Level 4 Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care. The course assists parents in developing their parenting skills and their ability to facilitate early childhood education in a playcentre setting. The programme also helps members to learn how to work in a cooperative as well as being the training ground for Playcentre adult educators. The adult education programme is delivered at no cost to the learner.

Famous Playcentre alumni include New Zealand's first female prime minister, the Rt. Hon. Jenny Shipley, New Zealand's first female Governor General, Dame Catherine Tizard, the Olympic gold medallists, Caroline Evers Swindell and Georgina Evers Swindell, Colin Simon (designer of the Christchurch Commonwealth Games 1974 games – Christchurch, New Zealand symbol and the Playcentre Logo), and Valerie Burns (Companion of the Queen's Service Order ).