ncundy

myself and my family will be emmigrating to NZ next year once my daughter finishes GCSE,s. Can anyone help with how she will slot into the education system over there as we are confused as to how it works and what the way ahead for her will be as she wants to continue with education. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Nei l

Justcol

Depending on the time of year you arrive she will probably slot into year 11
which will mean she is re doing half of the year she has just completed in the uk.
This isnt a bad thing as it takes some pressure off her and allows her to concentrate
on simply fitting in.
She can then go onto yr 12 and 13 (ncea level 3 Equivelent of A level).
For this she will simply stay on at the school, there arent seperate 6th form here.
Ncea works on an accumulated credits system, these are awarded throughout
the year and for end of yr exams.
You need a min of 60 (i think) credits to go onto university and it shouldnt be
a problem reaching that amount in the time she has.
Credits are catergorised as A = achieved ( the lowest), M = merit and E = excellence
For uni she will be classed as a home student as long as you have PR.
If she decides to return to the uk for uni she shouldnt have a problem.
My son has returned after doing yrs 12 and 13 here in nz, he had no trouble
getting into the uni's he wanted with his nz qualifications.
He is also still classed as a home student in the uk so no huge fees.

I'm sure someone can shed a little more light onto this for you but this
is how it worked for us.

ncundy

Colandros,
Many thanks for your reply.
That sounds pretty good and agree with what you said about repeating half a year it will get her to meet new friends and settle her in and keep her brain ticking over until the next term begins. If it works out that way I will be more than happy and I know my daughter will be.
Many thanks again

Tomsk

Hi, we did the same as you're planning to, & moved over here in June 08 pretty much immediately after our 16 year old son had completed his GCSEs. He was offered the option of going into year 12, but that way he would have missed approx half of that academic year & would have needed to buckle down immediately to have any chance of achieving anything worth mentioning in year 12 (NCEA level 2) & we figured that that wasn't in his best interests, largely because he's not the best at getting down to hard work, but also because so much of NCEA is based on coursework that he simply wouldn't have time to achieve, and also we wanted to take some of the pressure off, let him have some time to settle in, make friends and find his way around before he really needed to start focussing on his studies. So he went into year 11 again, despite that making him the eldest in his year group by about 3 months or so. He just about scraped an achieved in year 11 (NCEA level 1) despite having passed 11 good GCSEs, but did well in year 12. Currently sitting NCEA level 3s with a view to university in Feb.

I've only told our story just to let you know it's all do-able. The education system over here seems to be pretty flexible from what I can see anyway, & continuing education into years 12 &13 is expected, without any big dramas about applying for 6th form. No privileges either though...just a continuation of school despite being in the senior years. A lot depends on individual students, but the schools seem to be pretty chilled about moving students up & down year groups according to their abilities. I can't help feeling that continuing in education is a great move for young people moving over here, we had 2 teenagers with us when we arrived and through their schools they met and made so many friends that they settled very quickly. It might, possibly, have been harder for them to meet so many friends if they weren't at school

Good luck with the process, it's an exciting time, but not an easy one.Hope it goes well for you.

ncundy

Tomsk,
Many many thanks for the reply, If we could get her into the year 11 that would be a good option and hopefully the schools in the area we are moving to will be as flexible, fingers crossed.
Looking forward to the new life