Sue Trace

Children’s Ark Early Childhood Education

I am very pleased to be part of this and excited to meet new people and learn some new ideas.  It is always good to know more about other centres, schools in our area.   

I have been at Children’s Ark now for 17 years.   We have gone through a huge transition in the last 18 months from a small community based kindergarten with 19, then 30 children, into a 74 place centre now taking under 2’s, with a toddlers room and an over 3’s room. This has been a big transition to go through and we are still very much finding our feet after all the disruption with COVID last year. 

We have a very much Te Whariki based curriculum, with our own philosophy. We love loose parts and of course children learning through play.  We have a dedicated team of teachers who each bring their own strengths and particular interests to their work. This seems to work beautifully with where we are heading as a centre and it is exciting when new ideas flow from the teachers research into their every day practice. A big part of my role is managing rather than teaching, but encouraging our teachers in their own personal growth and how that feeds down into the centre, is what I am most passionate about. 

I am married with 3 grown up boys. Being in nature is where I like to spend my down time, and I  have various craft interests including making resources for the centre.