Schools in Dunedin
 

Hi all,

New to the site so please bear with us. Have been offered and accepted a job in south dunedin which starts in mid Jan. Am desperately looking for a quality primary school for our eldest. If anyone has any recommendations or can suggest a good family residential area? Have 3 kids, 15 months 3years and 5.
Thanks for all your help

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

If you have the time (and inclination) you could trawl through this page: http://www.ero.govt.nz/Early-Childho...School-Reports

ERO = OFSTED

You'd just have to do a wide search on Dunedin, and then the list tells you what type of school it is (secondary/primary). Each ero report should tell you what decile the school is, and if it has a webpage that should also be listed.

Not many schools here have enrolment zones, so if you really wanted you could live in one suburb and enrol your child in a school in a different suburb.

Like the UK, most 'good' schools are in high decile (well-off) areas, so you might find your choice of school depends on where you can afford to live.

As a starting point, I would suggest a look at the following:

Maori Hill, Kaikorai Primary (zoned status applied for I think), St Clair (zoned), George Street Normal, some of the ones on the Peninsula (members who live out there would be able to tell you more about those), Fairfield. I used to work at Mornington and loved it, but not everyone does (I think I found that it runs more along similar lines to UK schools than others in NZ).

Oh, and just to clarify, Kaikorai Primary isn't in the suburb of Kaikorai- it serves the area around Roslyn/Maori Hill/ Wakari. Wakari has its own school too, but I've heard mixed reports about it.

As for places to live, well that depends on what sort of area you're after (and your budget). Whilst Dunedin is a city, many of the suburbs are semi-rural. Let us know if you want to be within walking distance of a range of shops, or prefer to be surrounded by open countryside etc, and we can make some suggestions :) Also whether you're more concerned with having a view (but having to deal with ice and snow in winter), or being on the flat or near a beach (and having to deal with implied threats of flooding/tsunami etc ;) )

Alternatively, give us some suburbs you've been looking at and we'll give you the rundown on them!

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

Thanks for all that. Have checked out the schools and they look very promising. St Clair looks good and a nice area. One other we looked at is St Brigids school, and living around Tainui / sunshine or Anderson Bay.
Whilst we dont want to live in the city we would like to be able to walk to shops, and a few facilities. Ideally we are looking for a good family residential area which either semi ruralish of close to a beach with a number of facilities within walking distance. imagine most people want the same.
thanks for the response amazingly helpful.
Mike and Mon

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

If your'e looking in those areas have a look at Anderson's Bay school and also Grants Braes in Waverley. Our daughter went to Grants Braes when we came over 7 years ago now but still a good school. Good luck :thumbsup:

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

DEpends on which Bling zone or wannabe area you want to live in lol

Moari Hill and Roslyn believe they are the posh suburbs lol and so does the likes of St Clair, its amazing how even over here people fight to keep their post codes in certain areas, we tried to get away from that crap in Poole dorset, lol .

St Clair school is excellently run, our daughter strated there when we first arrived in 05, the Moari hill schools are very well run, and there are a few schools near Tainui, some have bigger role calls, depnds on areas, there are a lot of Island families who send their kids from low class areas to Moari hill schools as the education is way better then state run schools on the flat.

If we had of stayed in town then our daughter choose to go to Queens High, but as we are out in Wop wops, she now catches bus at our gate and goes to Taieri high, seems to be doing very well, kids seem to stay kids longer in NZ, so thats a good thing.

Who are you working for in South D ?

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

Thanks for that, exactly the sort of language i need. Am working for Dunedin community care trust as a behaviour specialist. Really looking forward to it, involves a bit of travel so will be nice to get around. What suburb are you in? How was the transition?

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

We used to live in ST Clair ish area lol lol had enough of neighbours, so we bit the bullet and bought a house in the Wop Wops ( sticks ) way out past a village called Outram past Mosgiel towards to airport, well if you can call it an airport lol, we now live on an acre of land , no neighbours except cows and chooks and ducks and sheep, the problem with many houses in Dunedin is that you never know who your neighbours could be, lots of houses are rented out, so be carefull where you buy or rent, we did buy in town but fell into the " better buy quick " pitfall, wasnt a bad area and the house did fetch us agreat price at auction when we sold it, but we did not know the house next door was still State owned and after we moved in they put in shithead after shithead, and the oned there now have been yelling and screaming at each other since we left, our friends across the road still tell us of the ammount of cop cars that turn up there still and take them both away on many occasions, lol

Thats why we bit the bullet and took out a wee mortgage on this place and love it out here, the winters can be way colder than town, but summers are hotter, and we have just retor fitted the whole house with double glazing, we both work in the Prison and after a day there its nice to home to peace and quiet, beautiful.

Re: Schools in Dunedin
 

And who let all the riff raff into the room?:D By the way Nige its Maori Hill (I know, you're just trying to wind us oiks up, but one of these days one of your work customers is going to take exception to your prononciation!)

St Clair school has a good rep from what I hear. Tahuna also seems good.