gavinbrett

My wife and I are planning on moving out to New Zealand in about fifteen months time. We have sold our house, and now waiting for our eldest son to finish his GCSE's.

We are looking at moving somewhere on the edge of either Wellington or Auckland. My wife is a qualified Level 7 Early Years professional basically someone qualified to run a pre-school or nursery, and will be looking for work in this field. Can anyone suggest the best place for her to find employment?
Would it be through an agency or simply apply to places directly?

I have over 15 years business management in IT experience, an qualified to run service centres, but am also a fully qualified Secondary School and Further Education post 16 teacher, and would really be looking at entering the best paid field.

Now the questions we have if anyone can answer, and I know they are subject to what visa we go for etc, but.

Best Place to live Wellington or Auckland? We have friends in Wellington but it's warmer in Auckland, warmer the better!

How do we go about looking for employment before going out. With IT work I can look at recruitment companies prior to going but what about Early Years or Secondary school teaching?

Kids & Schools. My eldest will have finished his GCSE's and will hopefully have a diploma in Engineering. He will want to go to college, then Uni. How will that work out in NZ?

My other two children will be 11 and 13 when we arrive, what school years would they go into and can anyone tell me what would be expected of them, SAT results etc. My middle one is in a sought after Grammer school and would be wanting a similar type of school out there.

What about Healthcare? You have a sort of NHS but also insurance based, what would we need moving out?

I'm sure I will have lots of other questions in the near future but anyhelp will be appreciated.

One last thing, the Emigration Expo's we have over here about moving out there. Any good or not?

babybella

[QUOTE=gavinbrett;9899813]My wife and I are planning on moving out to New Zealand in about fifteen months time.

Hi there, thought I would get the ball rolling and try to answer some of your questions, I'm sure others will add to what I don't know.

First jobs- look on www.seek.co.nz for both IT and teaching jobs, or tradme.co.nz

Housing - www.trademe.co.nz or www.open2view.co.nz
location- can only talk about wellington (I know nothing about Auckland). We live on the kapati coast about 45 mins drive north of wellington. The weather is notable better than wellington. It is on a good train link into the city and some lovely beaches.

Schooling- 2 good secondary schools Paraparaumu college and Kapati college (most kids stay on at school until 18) But lots also go on to college at 16 for specialist courses (just google wellington polytech's)
Private schooling- Scotts college, St Patricks or Wellington boys (not sure if that's the correct name, someone can correct it) All have good rep's
On the whole schooling seems to be fine (a huge generalisation) but I can only go by what I have seen. Schools are ranked by a decile number with 10 being the highest. No Sat's here (thank God) waste of time IMO as a teacher myself all they do is stress out the teachers and the kids who are force fed past papers for a month before the tests.

Can't answer anything about visa's sorry as we all have NZ citizenship but I'm sure others can.

Now cost of living, as has been discussed in other posts, I have found cost of living about the same as the UK, some things cheeper, some dearer. If you have a decent wages and standard of living then you will probably have the same here. If you struggle to make ends meet in the UK don't come to NZ expecting a different result.
Hope this is of some help
Kaz

Expat Kiwi

Check to see if her qualification enables her to do that work in New Zealand, she may have to retrain if its not.

As for your children, generally speaking the older they are the harder it is to move them and I think you'll notice a big difference between the education systems in the two countries. I'm not saying one is better than the other but they are different, if you're looking for similar standards to what they're used to find schools that still offer a good range of GCSEs.

rossojo

I'll cover some of the teaching stuff
Registration - http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/
International Qualification Assessment - http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualificatio...ualifications/
Jobs - http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Vacancies/
Pay scales - http://www.ppta.org.nz/index.php/col...t-four?start=1

Hope that helps a little

Justcol

There aren't any collages as we know them in the UK.
Kids can finish school after yr 11 (16 equivalent to GCSE)) or stay on at the same school until yr13 (equivalent to A level)
depending on his agee your son may have to back to school to complete upto yr 13
or he may have enough with the diploma to gain uni entrance at 18, best check with various uni for this.
A quick email to the admissions dept should get you an answer. My son arrived after completing the 1st yr of his A levels
and chose to continue at school for another yr but would have had enough with his UK results to gain NZ uni entry.
Qualified engineers are in big demand here as they keep leaving to earn more overseas

northumberland

Link to Early childhood.
Early Childhood Teacher Education Qualifications @ www.TeachNZ.govt.nz

Depends upon type of qualification - most UK Early Ed not directly transferable (but there may be exceptions). Cost of NZ 1 year Post Grad qualification = $5000 - $7000.
I am supply teaching in the primary & early years so would be happy to answer any specific questions. Kindergarten and Pre schools differ in relation to pay & hours etc. Average qualified hourly rates $18 - $35 depending upon role and qualification. (Kindergarten have pay parity with Primary)

luvwelly

[QUOTE=babybella;9900389] Scots College is private, St Pats Kilbirnie and Wellington College(Boys) are state schools. The reputations for the state schools and Colleges vary a lot. Decile can be a good guide.
There are other private options such as Samuel Marsden Whitby which is mixed.