BestStart Early Learning centres scooped the coveted Reader’s Digest Best Quality Service Award, Kindergarten Centre
Operators Award for 2019.
BestStart is New Zealand’s largest early learning provider with 260 centres, 4,500 staff and 18,000 children attending
centres across the country.
Fiona Hughes, Deputy CE, said that the Award was well-deserved recognition that BestStart was working in partnership
with its families.
‘I want to thank our centre teams for this award. Our teaching teams build relationships by listening, being creative,
flexible, caring and often going the extra mile. It can be a thankless task, but our parents have acknowledged their
outstanding work in this awesome way today.
It’s wonderful to see our families recognize that for the second time.’
Hughes says many BestStart families are there through word of mouth parent recommendations.
‘We do some great advertising but there’s nothing like a friend recommending a centre to another friend. We have a lot
of parent recommendations and we feel very proud of that.
‘People tend to stay with BestStart, we hope that’s because they feel valued, because they are. This is an award that
all our teams can feel incredibly proud of. It belongs to them.’