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Thread: School Teachers getting work

  1. #1
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    Default School Teachers getting work

    My wife is a teacher (she specialises in Years 1 and 2, also has an interest in Special Needs teaching) here in England.

    Does anyone have any experience of getting a teaching job in NZ. How easy was it for you to find work? Were your qualifications up to scratch? What is the level of lesson planning over there like compared to here (she is disollusioned with the school system here at the moment.. so much planning and so little teachin! ).

    Many thanks for any experiences shared....

  2. #2
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    Hi Chief

    My husband is a secondary Geography teacher from the UK so I do have lots of info on NZ schools - but I don't know if you want to hear it as he has had a pretty hard time and is pretty disillusioned! Some of this is the particular school he is in, but some of it is just due to the different systems. Education in NZ is essentially privatised - schools compete for pupils, they get a certain amount of funding per pupil but this does not cover stationary / textbooks / trips. So one of his jobs is to hand out accounts and bills to the kids - some of whom come from very poor families. If a child does not have a jotter, he cannot give him one out of the store - the child has to buy one. Truancy seems to be endemic in NZ (I think the national average is 11% of pupil AWOL every day), and there seems to be very little follow up for notes from parents. From your wife's perspective of teaching special needs I think she would need to investigate this very carefully. As the schools are all essentially independent, there is no local authority involvement in them at all - so all the services that the local authorities provide in the UK - child psychologsts, social workers, special teaching units, just don't exist here. All such services are provided by central government - and they are very very thinly spread. Academic and sporting excellence are all the good schools are interested in (best value for money in their eyes - and good advertising material), and there seems to be very little in place to catch kids that fall through this - whether their problems are disability, or social / family problems. I met someone recently at a conference who spent 8 years teaching children with special needs, but gave it up becuase she couldn't handle fighting the system, and letting the kids down.

    oops bit of a rant there! My advice for anyone considering teaching in NZ would be to really research it well - don't take the Teach NZ pages as the full story! Read and find out about the NZ system, talk to other people who have taught there. Better forewarned than not at all!

    Sorry to be so negative, as I said a lot of problems have come from the specific school situation. But the overall system is very different to the UK, and to ayone with a social conscience - hard to swallow.

  3. #3
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    Just realised that I never actually answered any of your questions!

    1. Primary teaching jobs very hard to come by, secondary very easy to come by as there is a major shortage.
    2. UK qualifications are very acceptable, as long as you go through the tediousprocess of getting NZQA to assess them, then register with NZ Teachign COuncil.
    3. Level of Planning at least as high as UK, assesments at least as complex, system at least as vulnerable to tinkering by politicians. Do a search on NCEA and have a read, maybe of newspaper articles.
    4. There's a reason there is a secondary teacher shortage - and it's not all demographic! It's tough all over.

  4. #4
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    Thanks for the reply... have to admit, not the answers that I was hoping to hear. Are primary jobs really that over-subscribed?

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by ruthyroo
    Truancy seems to be endemic in NZ (I think the national average is 11% of pupil AWOL every day), and there seems to be very little follow up for notes from parents.
    Hi Ruthy, according to the government, in 2002 the average truancy rate was 2.9%.

    Like many other aspects of life in NZ, that average is made up of a higher rate for Maori and Pacific peoples and a lower rate for others.

    http://www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/public.../nov-03-05.htm

    p.s. Sorry to hear about your husband's disillusionment. I know there are major differences between schools in NZ so perhaps a different school might be better?

  6. #6
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    Hi there

    You are absoltuely right - a different school would no doubt make a difference and is certainly the longer term aim. The school he's at is at least half maori kids, as is the area where we are living. One of the better local schools has about 1000 pupils - at any one time up to 200 of the kids are out of school, despite them having three dedicated truancy officers... And those numbers come from the teachers - but the school of course strives not to publicise them! So I guess we're seeing the worse of a bad situation.

    Primary teaching I am hearing different things about, but it isn't on the POL so I guess that means there is not a shortage in general. I guess it's another 'right time right place' one.

    Best of luck
    Ruth

  7. #7
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    The schools you teach at surely make a difference. My sis is a primary teacher in a poor Akld school, all (well 90%) of the students are Polynesian...samoan mostly. It has been very stressful indeed for her, coping with students that are not academically minded at all really.

    Other schools a far better organised or more rewarding....Sis is looking at moving to a diff school she has been told is a world different from the one she is in now.

    Certainly schools with higher proportions of Maori/Pac Island children have much higher social problems, truancy etc etc. Get into a rural NZ type setting though, and it is totally different.

  8. #8
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    Stu, good to hear that. The plan is for him to stick out a year, and sort the department out a bit and spend that time looking for another area / school to move on to. It's like you said on the 'maori politics' post about it being culturalism, not racism to see the problems. The maori kids are so transient - they move between extended family members and change schools many times so their learning is totally disrupted, they get little encouragement from home to study, they're not interested in qualifications or any of the 'usual' targets, they just aren't interested in the (western-style) education that is on offer - and a flippin hard to teach in that system as a result! the Yr 9 & 10 classes are about 50% maori, then after that almost exclusively pakeha and asian as the maori kids all disappear once they hit 15. So good to hear there are other schools out there that aren't all like that!

  9. #9
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    I am a primary school teacher too..... I've taught in two schools here. The first was a nightmare. The second (where I am now) is a dream.
    Both Decile 10.
    Just different times - and different leadership.
    i was too homesick while I was in the first one.... and i didnt see eye to eye with the DP (deputy principal). Just a clash of personalities but enough to doubt my skills.

    I have now worked in my current school for the last 6 years - part-time at first (while my baby was small) then I was made full time and permanent last year.

    I have learnt so much there and have a lot of exciting opportunities available to me.
    I do believe each school is a bit of a lottery - as in who you get to work with. The ERO reports can tell you a little - but not really what it is truly like to work there.
    Best thing to do is - try a lot of relieving (supply) work in an area first and get a feel for each school. Then when you like one - push for more work - the positions DO come up. It's just a mattter of patience.

    Carol

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