Our People
The Trust, it’s people and relationship to Daisies
Whanake Education Trust was established by to sit alongside Daisies EECC
Daisies was established in 2008 by Anne Meade and Linda Meade and Rachel Denee was the first head teacher there. Rachel Denee is now co-owner with Linda Meade.
Dr Anne Meade CNZM, QSO
Dr Anne Meade has had a long career as a teacher of young children and adults and as an educational researcher and policy developer. She has been a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, Director of the NZ Council for Educational Research, and a Senior Fulbright Scholar. As a consultant, Anne has worked in Australia, Qatar and the UK, as well as in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2018, Anne was given the Minister of Education’s Life-time Achievements in Education Award.
Linda Meade
Linda is a consultant, advisor and independent director. She is passionate about improving the lives of peoples and communities in New Zealand through everything she does. Linda’s career includes 28 years in “big 4” consulting firm culminating in seven years as a partner at Deloitte where she advised a broad range of for-profit, not-for-profit and government entities. Her expertise focused on supporting wise design, decision-making and delivery of flagship programmes and sector leadership across transport, education, health and housing.
More recently Linda made the decision to leave Deloitte to focus on her governance roles – including owner/director at Daisies as well a trustee of Whanake – and to act as consultant to programmes and projects where she believes she can make the most difference to New Zealanders.
Over the past 15 years, working alongside Anne and Rachel, Linda has developed a much deeper appreciation of the value to children of participation in good quality early childhood education. Although her professional expertise lies more in the world of business than in educational pedagogy, she is also a strong advocate for women’s participation in the workforce and believes strongly that access to childcare is a vital foundation for equal opportunity.
Dr Rachel Denee
Rachel Denee has been working in early childhood education for over twenty years, in various teaching, leadership and research roles. She has worked in kindergarten, private and community-based ECE settings, as well as contracts for tertiary providers, the Ministry of Education, professional learning facilitation, and leadership coaching. Rachel recently completed a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, studying teacher professional learning and visual arts pedagogy. She is a trustee with Reggio Emilia Aotearoa New Zealand. Rachel is a co-owner and pedagogical leader at Daisies, and collaboratively leads the team to develop innovative research-based approaches to teaching and learning.
Daisies has been recognised for excellence in care and education in a variety of ways [PM Education Excellence Awards, ERO highest rating, SBN Sustainable Business of Year National winner SMEs, Enviroschools Silver].
The key focus for Daisies is to provide high quality early childhood education and care and to be a lighthouse of best practice for others. All of the Daisies teachers and educators believe passionately in “The Daisies Way”. In 2019 we opened a second centre “Te Pihinga” next door to the existing centre “Te Purapura”.
Daisies has developed and run seminar days for teachers and educators, and has hosted local and international visitors interested in learning about our pedagogy.
Daisies has gained Teacher Led Innovation Funding (Ministry of Education, 2019-2020) in partnership with Te Puna Reo o Ngā Kākano. The two centres undertook an inquiry into the effect of teachers using scale tools for professional learning, assessment of language use and a boost to children’s communication competence.
Daisies has produced and disseminated publications and partnerships with other organisations, such as StoryPark and The Education Hub, to produce online content: for example:
“Imagine a classroom without walls”
Daisies has transferred ALL of its Intellectual Property (IP) to Whanake for nil compensation, while retaining full license to continue using this IP itself.