Bev Carlton

Owner Kidz World Early Learning and Childcare Centre

People often ask me the question why childcare centres and why Kidz world. I always find it difficult to answer these questions because I don't really know. I just have a vision for what childcare should be and an enormous respect for children. I love working with children and they always amaze me with their humour, their uniqueness, individuality and their incredible ability to learn. They are just great.

Working with children is the most challenging job one can have whether you are an ECE teacher or a parent, it is the most rewarding, frustrating, infuriating, humorous, challenging, loving job one can have. I have never found it to be boring! You are too busy to be bored. It teaches you so much about yourself and stretches you to the limits. It is the perfect Career for me.

I began teaching ballet at 17 having my own ballet school at 18. I developed the school, reaching a role of over a hundred and fifty students. I became disillusioned with the syllabus I was teaching believing it to be too rigid and restraining on the children's love for dance. I began studying how children develop and learn and developed my own system to compliment the syllabus I was teaching. To my surprise the children excelled in their exams and their love for dance shone through every movement they made. This then set me to questioning more about the systems we use to teach our children. This in turn led me to become involved with playcentre when my oldest child was 2. I proceeded through the playcentre training and became more and more fascinated with early childhood. Continuing to learn ever since. Children are my life.

At 24 I was married and had my first child at 25. I sold my ballet school to be devoted to home life. I have nine children. Probably one of my greatest challenges is that then I was a very impatient person, now... well ...I learnt a lot of lessons about the importance of patience. My children are truly wonderful individuals, have caused me great pain and anguish but even more they have given me the most wonderful and beautiful times of my life. My youngest is five and is Down Syndrome. This is a new challenge for me, as I have not had a lot of experience with special needs children. He is just the most fun loving little boy and the whole family adores him.

My goal in setting up Kidz World was to make it a place where children come first. Each area of the centre is designed for the age group it caters for and the teachers are continually developing their programs to ensure each child is nurtured and developed to their full potential. We are always on the look out for more ideas, methods and ways to enhance children's learning. We aim to have the best staff in Rotorua and to create an atmosphere that would enhance the teachers ability to work with the children and for the children to feel safe and secure so they can learn to the best of their ability.

My staff are the best. They are a great bunch of people.  Where else can you find a group, predominantly of women, who all get along both at work and socially so well as the Kidz World Team? I cannot thank them all enough for their commitment to the centre and to your children. Everyone who joins our team seems to grow and learn both in their professional development and their personal development and that is a credit to the staff and their ability to accept each other and to their desire to be the best they can be.

This website is the next part of my goal. My hope is to keep parents better informed and to have better communication between families and whanau and the centre. We would like to involve parents in their childs learning. As the site progresses we will have a page for centre parents eyes only but this will take some time.

We also wish to help parents find information, which will help them on their journey with their children. We will have a links site where you are able to go to related sites which I hope you will find interesting, inspiring and most of all helpful to you as a parent. Kidz World will not necessarily agree with all that the sites have to say but I believe in providing as much varied information we can to allow people to make up their own minds and find the right path that suits them and their needs.

I am honoured to have your children attend my centre and hope this Website will enhance your experience with us, and that of your children.