clair73

Hi Guys

I dont know if anyone has put this link up but i thought it would be great for people with children wanting to move to New Zealand and want to check out schools.
This link i have always used when we have moved area. It has all the schools on this website and once you click one you can get all the info you need.
http://www.tki.org.nz/e/schools/index.php

squiddley

Hi, thanks soooo much for that,,really helpful

Beetrooper

Many thanks for this Clair, I am in the process of looking for a school for my son

nic.gem.soph

thanks claire really helpful, you're a star, if I can work out this karma stuff i'll give you some

MOSO

Try this one too - it shows school results:

http://www.teamup.co.nz/School_Directory/default.htm

Yummy_Mummy

Hey Clair,

This is great!!! Thanks very much this will help ALOT!!!

Cheers,
C xxx

mum-dad-3-little people

Hi there
Sorry for butting in but this is a really dauting area for us as its the first time we have done this
We are moving to Christchurch in March and need to look for a school for our 5 year old and do not know were to start. I have looked at the fab links you have posted which are great but how do i compare schools? Have looked at the reports but they seem all the same, how do you find the best ones? What about catchment areas????? What am i supposed to be looking for?
Sorry if it sound silly but Crèche & Pre-school were always supplied to us by the Military so we haven't had to look and compare before.
PLEASE HELP,... any advice would be great, so would any recommendation.
Thanks
Jackie

luvwelly

I agree the NZ ERO Reports are not as revealing as UK Ofsted ones. However if you believe that a school with a higher proportion of kids from more economically advantaged backgrounds has a better chance of providing a quality educational experience owing to having less of a mountain to climb....then you can use the school's decile rating to rule out many schools from your initial shortlist. Decile 10 means more kids from economically advantaged backgrounds, decile 1, the opposite.

You won't be able to decide much in advance for a state school as many are zoned (the school's own website should give the details of zoning if any) so where you rent or buy will determine which school you can enrol at but there is often more than one to choose from.

If you really want to think ahead, look at the decile of local secondary schools (likely to be lower) and see which your chosen primary schools feed into...could save you having to move house because of a zone later on.

Probably better to make this decision once you are here if she is only 5 and of course visit several schools before deciding where to rent/buy.

teambwr47

Decile rating is a good indicator but not the be all and end all.......

We put our daughter into a decile 10 school but ended up pulling her out of there as it was way way to religious and the ethnic mix meant quite a few in her class struggled badly with english.

She's now in a school that agreed to take her even though we were out of zone. The school is much smaller and a decile 8 but in our view much the better all round school and she is much happier there.

The decile rating does not express the quality of teaching nor indicate necessarily the better school environment, it reflects the socio economic mix of the school. Obviously to some extent the ability to teach is matched to the pupils who attend but its not always the case.
Some re-zoning seems to be squarely aimed at some schools improving their decile rating by excluding some streets and neighbourhoods in future.

In my opinion you can only make your mind up on schooling once you're here and able to visit the school.

luvwelly

This is the ERO website if you want to read the NZ equivalent of Ofsted reports:
www.ero.govt.nz (Educational Review Office). All schools seem to have websites so you can evaluate facilities/premises to some extent.

mum-dad-3-little people

Hi Everyone
That's great thanks makes thing a bit clearer, was wondering what decile ratings were.
I think your all right and i won't worry about it too much till we get there and talk to other people and have a look at some schools.
Thanks so much for your help.
Jackie

jojobooster

HI
I've been working as a relief teacher in my kids' school since we arrived 9 months ago.
The decile rating is a bit of a con really. The socio economic mix of the intake shouldn't affect how much money the school gets from the government, but it does.
Our school, a decile 10, relies heavily on its parental donation as it gets way less than a decile 1 school. It is underresourced, reliant on free parental expertise, in areas like IT, which luckily i can help with, and parents often feel obliged to contribute more through fund raising. It's an expensive business being a mom I can tell you. I earn it one day and give it back the next!!!

Schools succeed because of the quality of the teaching staff so it pays to look around and get feedback. Our local real estate agents were brilliant, telling us which schools to avoid. And we have ended up in the "Best Little School in the Universe" http://www.laingholm.school.nz/

luvwelly

Rather than being a con, I thought this was the whole justification for having deciles so that the parental contribution could be higher and so that the schools with more disadvantaged pupils got more of the 'in NZ' extremely limited Government cake.

The 'fees' which state schools charge are low and yet I have seen people on here post about struggling to pay them but you will find probably to a much greater extent than in the UK, all schools (state and private here) go in for a great deal of voluntary fundraising initiatives such as sausage sizzles and selling you frozen croissants (go figure?) which is just another way of getting money from parents....hopefully for the extras. Plus all the usual making up staffing ratios on school trips/lessons at the swimming pool etc etc ....the upside is that it makes you feel more involved in the school community.

I still think someone emigrating needs to be aware of the decile rating since it does not exist in the UK and you might just regret it if you put your child in a school with a decile of less than 7/8....who knows?

clair73

I thought decile rate was based on the area in which the school was located. My kids have been in schools less than seven and they have been brilliant. I think you really need to come and pick an area you like and then talk to people about schools in that area. Good Luck