Families
We founded Tiny Nation because we’re parents who are passionate about giving New Zealand children the best start in life. We get what it’s like as a parent when you can’t be with your child because you have to be somewhere else. It’s tough. But what makes it easier is knowing that your child is settled, happy and loved by someone in a nurturing and caring environment.
Our commitment to families
“Ko te ahurei o te tamaiti aroha o tatou mahi.
Let the uniqueness of the child guide our work.”
When you enrol as a family with Tiny Nation, we make a commitment to you as we journey together to provide your child with the love and care that they need to grow and flourish. For us, early childhood starts with care and ends with education. We know that no significant learning can occur without there first being a significant relationship. Your chosen educator becomes your child’s special person – their ‘go to’ in times of triumph and trouble. Someone who loves them just like you do and an extension of your family.
Here’s how we look after our families at Tiny Nation
Because we believe in quality, not quantity, we only work with trained educators and qualified teachers, who by completing their training have proven their commitment to nurturing and caring for children. We find the best trained teachers and educators and support them to deliver their own unique early learning programmes in their own homes. We hand-pick them for their passion, commitment, experience and qualifications. We know that qualifications are an indicator of quality when it comes to early childhood education and we’re proud to represent 100% qualified educators and teachers.
When you enquire with us as a family, we support you to self-match with a Tiny Nation educator of your choice. The choice factor is huge here – you get to choose the person you leave your child with when you can’t be there. You will choose your educator based on the needs of your family and child, your values, your own early learning philosophy and, most importantly, your connection with them. This allows you to find the perfect educator for your family – someone who will become a part of your support village and who will advocate fiercely for your child when you can’t. Isn’t this what we all want as parents?
By choosing home-based early learning, you are choosing small groups and responsive relationships. Tiny Nation educators have no more than four pre-school children in their care at any given time, with no more than two under the age of two. This allows them to engage with their care children in meaningful ways, dedicating time to support their development and getting to know them deeply. Having small ratios of children per educator enables respectful interactions and authentic connections. Your child is not just a number at Tiny Nation.
Home environments stir up comforting memories for all of us. We make personal connections with this kind of environment because it represents our childhood. It provides a strong sense of security and safety as we are able to seek comfort through the familiar. Early childhood education in home environments provide a calm and settled foundation for learning to occur. Children have the space to explore the community around them in real and authentic ways.
Once you have chosen the educator who will be the perfect fit for your family, they will work alongside you to provide you with flexible care arrangements that work around a settling-in transition for your child, the hours you require care and potential drop off or pick up options. Our service exists to meet the needs of our families and we know that these needs can be changeable depending on your family’s circumstances.
We’re all about making the complicated simple. We can do this by taking care of payment administration to keep paperwork and admin to a minimum for our families. All you need to do is authorise us to take care of your educator’s pay and then set up the agreed online payment.
Tiny Nation holds weekly teacher-led events and outings for children and educators to attend. Getting out and about in the local community is an important benefit of home-based early childhood education. It allows your child to make connections to the world around them, learn to explore unfamiliar environments and engage with people from all walks of life. It grows their confidence, curiosity and capability and challenges them to adapt to changing environments and situations. This is a healthy (and important) part of their development and learning. Our weekly events and outings provide an opportunity for children to be around a larger group of other children and educators, socialising with their peers and engaging in play-based learning activities.
We’ve developed innovative solutions to make sure families don’t have to be weighed down by administration. We provide every educator with a tablet that connects them electronically with their programme and our support systems. Families can sign in and out using the tablet and receive important communication and learning stories about their child/ren in real time.
From time to time, your educator may have appointments or emergencies crop up. We can appreciate how challenging this can be if you have to find alternative care arrangements for short periods of time. To support families and educators, Tiny Nation visiting teachers (who are qualified and registered teachers) come in to provide short-term relief and emergency care in the home where care takes place. If needed, we can also find alternative educators to provide care if your educator is unavailable for longer periods of time. We go the extra mile to ensure you have consistent and familiar care options because we get the day to day childcare juggle.
We walk alongside you as a parent to provide support, resources and tools that will help you on your journey. We get that being responsible for shaping little minds is a big deal! So that you never have to do it alone, we have created a Tiny Nation village for families to tap into. Our village of support is here to help you with:
- Communicating with your educator and contributing to the individual programme plans for your child.
- Creating connections with other families and educators in your area.
- Meeting any special needs or requirements your child has.
- Learning more about early childhood development and theory to help you understand key ages, stages, milestones and needs.
- Building a network of support with other community support agencies or early learning professionals.
We’re passionate about empowering our educators to be the best they can be. Professionalising the early learning industry is important to us and we support our educators to commit to a Tiny Nation Career Pathway that will grow with them and continue to reward them for their contribution and commitment. As a family, you benefit from this as your educator is exposed to new learning, opportunities and ideas in early childhood education. This gives them inspiration and motivation in their educator role while also ensuring they have an up to date knowledge of early learning theory and best practice.
As our Tiny Nation children approach their school years, they are supported with the transition to a new learning environment. Our educators build strong relationships with local schools and engage in school readiness programmes that build competence and confidence in our little learners, as they enter their next stage of life.
Ministry of Education Partnership
Tiny Nation is a licenced home-based service provider with the Ministry of Education. This means that our team always adhere to specific licensing criteria around governance and management, health and safety, premises and facilities and curriculum. You can have peace of mind knowing that all Tiny Nation services meet Ministry of Education standards and the regulations that govern licensed service providers. You can read more about the licensing and regulatory standards by clicking on the links below.
Licensing Criteria for Home-Based ECE Services | Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008