Our Mission admin November 1, 2023

Our Mission

Our goal at Jumping Beans is to empower you, as parents and caregivers, to raise happy, healthy and confident children for a peaceful and sustainable future. You have one of the most important jobs on this planet because you are the most influential part of your child’s brain development. This happens most rapidly in the first five years, formed through what they experience during this highly sensitive time.

At the core of the Jumping Beans philosophy is the premise that early childhood education and preschool learning leads to improved physical, emotional, social and cognitive development, and we’ve worked hard to make Jumping Beans an invaluable way to give this to your child.

We’ve participated in research showing Jumping Beans improves motor and safety skills in pre-schoolers.

But even beyond the science, we believe so strongly in Jumping Beans because we have over 30 years of experience helping parents/caregivers bond with their kids, have fun with their kids, and see their kids learn and grow in leaps and bounds (pun intended)!

History

Researched internationally, Jumping Beans was co-founded in 1988 in Auckland, New Zealand by Sophie Foster (B.A.(Hons), L.T.C.L., Dip. Suzuki Music Pedagogy, Dip. Early Childhood), an acclaimed early childhood music teacher and Jerome Hartigan (MSc, H Dip. Ed), a former Olympic Athlete. Jerome left the company in 2005 to pursue other opportunities.

In 2014 Simon Rickman joined Sophie as co-owner and director. Together they gathered a team of experts to ensure that the Jumping Beans programme delivers the best possible physical development environment for you and your child. These efforts were recognised in 2016, when Jumping Beans won an international award from OMEP (The World Organisation For Early Childhood Education).

Jumping Beans has produced not only several generations of happier, healthier kids through its preschool gymnastics programmes; it has produced a series of preschool picture books (written by Sophie and published by David Bateman), and the Jumping Beans flagship book for parents, Move Baby Move (co-written by Sophie and Jerome and published by Random House NZ), also available as an e-book under the title Parenting Tips. Sophie is also working on the development of the Jumping Beans preschool TV show.