Celebrities and children challenge Cuts

Thousands of children from around New Zealand will be holding a Play-In on August 8 to illustrate the importance of Playcentre.

Proud To Be Playcentre: A National Day of Celebration will see families gathering nationwide in unusal places to hold a Playcentre session and protest against proposed funding cuts that would spell the end of this Kiwi institution.

In Auckland, families will gather at Aotea Square at 9.30am to celebrate, with a diverse selection of guest speakers.

The ECE Taskforce Report, commissioned by the government to investigate returns on investment in the early childhood sector, proposes reducing Playcentre funding by up to 70%, making the more than 460 centres nationwide non-viable.

Playcentre has provided early childhood education and adult education for some of our country's most well-known faces. Former presenter and reporter Lisa Manning and her husband, international actor John Rhys-Davies, attended Pukekawa Playcentre with their daughter Maia until she started school.

"We chose Playcentre because of its philosophy which recognises the value of play. Our daughter Maia thrived there, emerging as a confident, happy, sociable child ready for school. It's absolutely shameful that the Government would even consider doing away with such a unique asset," says Lisa.

"At a time when we should be doing all we can to encourage parents to be hands on with their children, we are faced with losing Playcentre! Ridiculous!" adds John.

Olympic gold medalist rowers Caroline Meyer and Georgina Earl (nee Evers-Swindell) also remember the benefits of growing up as Playcentre children.

"Our faint memories of Playcentre are sandpits and finger painting. But our mother remembers more clearly and describedPlaycentre as being a wonderful place, where all four of us kids could go at the same time and play in our different groups.Our mother also said that the education programmes for parents were extremely beneficial as well as all the other wonderful opportunities and assistance that Playcentre provided," they said.

Playcentres are parent-led early childhood education centres that began in Wellington in 1941 to support families and communities during the war.

Playcentre pioneered child-led play-based learning, now a cornerstone of the Ministry of Education's early childhood curriculum Te Whaariki, the current world-class education used by all ECE's in New Zealand (it is so successful Japan is now copying Playcentre's unique model).