Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Hi! I'm a primary school teacher desperate to emigrate to NZ with my husband and daughter asap. I've had my qualifications assessed by the NZQA and have joined the Teachers Council. However in order to get PR I need a job (we don't have enough points without) and it seems that without a Visa I can't get a job! I have been applying for jobs from the UK but getting nothing back. I am strongly considering heading out to NZ in the next few weeks to seek work hoping that actually being the country will help. Has anyone out there had the same experience - any advice would be great!

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

I've been in the country for nearly 2 months and haven't had any success either!
The new year starts in January and jobs are starting to slowly trickle through.

The main feedback I have had is the lack of NZ experience, there does seem to be an underlying current of being useasy about giving someone a job who might leave the country. I now express I have PR in applications.

Hope everything works out for you.

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Thanks zoexr!

Can I ask where you have based yourself and if you have even managed to secure an interview anywhere. I think we will head to Auckland as that is where there seems to be the most chance of me getting a job.

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

It seemed a really negative reply, when I read it back! Sorry about that :o

I'm in Napier, so not much in the job market at the moment. I think Auckland would be the better place jobs wise, but would that impact on your points?

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

With the offer of a job we will have enough points for PR but it just seems so many people have problems getting the job before visa. My job also has to be permanent not fixed term. Seem to be caught in a really frustrating situation. Have you worked in NZ before? Have you applied for many jobs yet?

Wow, I've just realised you already have PR - and you still can't get a job?! How did you achieve PR without work?

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Hey,

My wife is a Primary Teacher and last year we were in the same boat that you are in.

Our plight is all detailed on my various posts on these forums, if you've got a short while spare, dig them out and have a read through of them.

In summary, we simply took the plunge and flew out here with our then 4yr and 2yr old boys. We did so with the intention of chasing a job down and were prepared to travel to wherever a job interview was arranged or even just remotely possible!

We had a hotel booked for the first 5 days and friends to stay with on the second week. Within a few days of landing we'd bought a car (we had a relatively modest pot of money to bring across after selling loads of our belongings, cars and so on in the UK), picked up mobile phones and mobile broadband dongle and set off on the challenge of her using a laptop to search for and apply for jobs on the fly... literally, from the edge of the bed, passenger seat of the car, hotel/motel room, a tent, a beach... wherever and whenever it was needed.

At the end of the second week we were off on the road, having bought a car-and-roof-box-full of camping equipment and promptly stayed in a string of hotels, motels, camp-sites etc... we slowly worked our way south from Auckland, seeing some fantastic areas of the country and meeting some wonderful people, applying for jobs as we went and driving to areas where either a concentration of job application deadlines where approaching or a job interview had been arranged.

Off the top of my head she applied for something like 56 jobs in total and had a total of 4 interviews 3 of which were carried out (only because she was offered and took a job before the final interview took place), 2 of which were in person and one of which resulted in a job offer.

We took off from the UK on September 13th 2009, we landed in Auckland on September 15th and it was the back-end of November (I think) when she "started" (albeit doing supply-work) in her role, before the official job started at the beginning of the new term in February 2010.


It's been hard work (as you'll see from my posts if you take the time to dig them out).

There's been laughter, there's been tears, there's been tantrums and stress and heartache and fear and adrenaline in the bucket loads - there's nothing like setting off in the car with two very young kids in the back, who's lives are entirely dependant on whatever your next move is - without having the first clue when or where you'd be sleeping next, nor what event(s) lay just around the next bend, in a foreign country thousands of miles from everything and everyone (else) that you hold dear... absolutely nothing like that to both drag you down and spurr you on in equal measure!

Would we do it again? Too right... just not in a hurry! :blink:

Would I recommend it to someone else? Absolutely! But only to those who enter in to it with their eyes VERY wide open and who have the capacity to adapt to unexpected events and unwelcome surprises at very short notice.

As you do, we also figured Auckland would likely be the place we'd end up, but as it happened the pursuit of the job meant we travelled south (together) as far as Blenheim before returning to the North Island and her landing the job in Masterton about 1.5hrs north of Wellington. The wife though flew for a job interview in Rakaia (south of Christchurch) on her own.

Having gone through exactly what you're contemplating, I'm/we're more than happy to field any questions you may have... and if you decide to take the leap and find yourself looking for a place to stay in or near Masterton, give us a shout... we had a number of very considerate (even if complete strangers) offer to assist and put us up for a night or two etc and it's only fair that we should pass some of that on!

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Morning!
Gosh, after finishing school in July ( year 3) I volunteered in reception class yesterday and this morning I feel like I've been ran over by a truck! Maybe a full time job isn't what I need now!!!:lol:

As I said in my last email, there hasn't been much advertised recently, so far I have applied for 3 jobs and I've got 2 I'm doing at the moment.
I've never worked in NZ, it was the first time I had steped foot in the southern hemisphere!

We got PR due to my husband, he had a job offer and ticked lots of other NZ needed boxes!

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Hi thedtb,

thanks for all the info that you have given me it is really really useful. I now realise I had already read some of your early threads and it is really great to hear how well it has all worked out for you guys.

We have also been applying for loads of jobs from the uk with no luck and have def decided to take the plunge and head over on a visitor visa - we are planning to fly on Nov 1st. I have got quite concerned about feedback different people are giving me about the difficulties I will face getting a job so it's lovely to hear of a positive story! We are planning to head to Auckland to start with and like you follow the jobs wherever they may be.

I have got 7 years teaching experience and am a KS2 co-ord as well as numeracy and PE and am confident that I could get a position in the UK easily. However applying in NZ is a whole new ball game! One difficulty I am finding with the applications is the criteria "sound knowledge of the NZ curriculum" I've read up on it but it's hard to fulfil that criteria without having taught it - did your wife come across a similar situation? How did she get over it?

Thanks for the offer of accommodation it may well be something we take up - it would certainly be good to make contact when we arrive.

We are also travelling with our 19 month old daughter so reading about your adventure really does seem to mirror what we are about to do - I hope we have the same success :fingerscrossed:

Thanks again.

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Hi zoexr,

thanks for the update. As you can see from my last post my husband and I are going for it and heading out to find work.

Can I ask how you went about getting volunteer work - did you need your PR to do it? I'm in Year 6 at the mo but would happily teach any level - even Reception - although it sounds like they are pretty exhausting!

Good luck with your applications let me know how they go :fingerscrossed:

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Hey,

I've asked my wife to look at this post of yours and let me have some words of wisdom for you... I'll send them on to you in due course.

A few other things beforehand though....

Presumably you know that as a UK Citizen you can get a visitor permit for a maximum of 6 months? - which is what we did... you simply write your expected departure date on the permit application form when you're on the plane and hand it to immigration/passport control etc when you arrive... the guy who checked us in did question why we wanted so long and (having been told that he'd be able to see that we'd already submitted an EOI by that time) I simply told him that we were interested in coming to live in New Zealand but wanted time to explore and decide on a general location.

He smiled (I'm sure it was a "knowing" smile but it could just have been my paranoia), stamped the passports with the 6 month permit and wished us the very best of luck.

You see... if you're specifically coming to New Zealand for business related activity, (and I read somewhere that going for job interviews would class as such) they can restrict the permit to a three month maximum term.

Given that we wanted as much time as possible to find the job, we didn't want to be caught with anything that would infer that was the reason we were going so... we posted all of our formal identification (birth certificates, marriage certificates, some hard copies of her CV (just in case we were without access to a printer at short notice), qualification certificates etc etc.. basically everything that we could possibly need either for a job, or to proceed with the application for Residency. (Incidentally it's cheaper to have the medicals done out here than in the UK), to New Zealand before we left the UK....

We did so by opening a PO Box address with http://www.privatebox.co.nz/. It's a cool service because they receive all of your mail (we actually still have all of our UK mail going there) and then via a web browser you can log in and ask them to either destroy mail you don't want, scan and email you mail you do want, and/or to post your mail to you to any physical address in the world.

As it happens we just used their web and email services until we found ourselves in Wellington and then went to their office to collect all of the mail that had built up for us, in person. The advantage was that we arrived and went through customs with absolutely nothing on us that would infer we were there as anything other than tourists on a research trip for somewhere nice to possibly live - I don't know for sure if it had ever have been a problem to have been found in possession of such items, but there was no chance of that and I was comfortable with it.

We also opened a bank account with www.kiwibank.co.nz prior to leaving the UK and sent funds across so that we had funds available IN New Zealand the moment we landed... a quick trip to the bank was one of the first ports of call, to show our ID and collect our bank cards etc. It was all VERY easy... I assume it'd be just as easy with any other bank too.

If you're flying out on November 1st there's not much time left now... and I'm getting all excited for you... I remember the buzz leading up to our departure like it was only yesterday.

Is there anything else I can answer (or attempt to answer) for you?

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

OMG! Having booked our flights to NZ to secure work face-to-face I have received not 1 but 2 job offers tonight! Now I just have to decide which one to accept! :eek:

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Congratulations! Being spoilt for choice is a lovely position to be in, I bet you are very excited.
Maybe you should give me some advice in how to get a job! ;)

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

To be honest, it's a complete whirlwind. One minute it all seemed so far away and the next, well, it really is happening. Yes I am so excited albeit a little daunted by what we need to get done before getting on the plane in just under 2 weeks time. But wow... I can't wait!!!:eek:

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Congratulations on the new job! I was in the same position last year, struggled to find my first job as a teacher... this year has been much more successful I"m happy to say. Getting a foot in the door is the hard part here, but once you do so, and work hard, you can do well. The combination of UK training and Kiwi experience seems to be a good mix.

If you need any help with curriculum, let me know, I know what it's like!

Re: Primary School teacher seeking advice!
 

Congratulations! Where are the jobs and have you decided which one to take? Good luck