Our People

At BestStart, people come first. When we grow and develop our people, everyone benefits. We strive for whakamana/empowerment, nurturing a culture of excellence with engaged, talented professionals. Their commitment, skill and passion light our way.

Our teachers are passionate and committed. We take pride in providing exceptional professional development opportunities that ensure that our staff have outstanding skills. Most of our teaching staff hold early-childhood education qualifications, and all staff are police-checked.

We have over 4,500 permanent teachers nationally. Over 90% of our permanent teaching staff are either fully qualified with a diploma or hold a bachelor of teaching in ECE (Early Childhood Education). Some have higher qualifications or are in training. These figures are very high by national standards within the ECE sector. In addition, we provide a two-year Advice and Guidance Programme for all recently graduated teachers to support them from provisional to full teacher registration with the NZ Teachers’ Council.

BestStart has a small and close-knit management team. Because of the talent, commitment and professionalism of this team, we offer an outstanding level of support to our centre teams, tamariki and families.

In addition, BestStart employs experienced managers at each of its centres to ensure an excellent standard of education is maintained. We provide support for centres with business managers and curriculum support managers (professional services managers), making BestStart a fully supported, happy and stable workforce, with the average length of service 5.2 years.

Now, that’s something to be proud of!