# New to Hamilton



## Slowers0782 (Sep 16, 2012)

Hi All, we are currently staying in the North shore (getting over our jet lag!) we are heading down to Hamilton today and are staying in a Motel, my husband starts work on Wednesday and we are trying to find a house. Originally we were looking at Cambridge as the middle school the for our 11 yr old seemed good and the town it's self has a good reputation. After visiting on Sat we have been informed that there is a real shortage of houses to rent there so we have now started to look at Hamilton itself. From research on the net we have found that all the nicer areas seem to have really low decile schools and the not so pleasant areas have the great schools:confused2: can anyone give us any advice please as I'm starting to get quite worried, thanks


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## escapedtonz (Apr 6, 2012)

Slowers0782 said:


> Hi All, we are currently staying in the North shore (getting over our jet lag!) we are heading down to Hamilton today and are staying in a Motel, my husband starts work on Wednesday and we are trying to find a house. Originally we were looking at Cambridge as the middle school the for our 11 yr old seemed good and the town it's self has a good reputation. After visiting on Sat we have been informed that there is a real shortage of houses to rent there so we have now started to look at Hamilton itself. From research on the net we have found that all the nicer areas seem to have really low decile schools and the not so pleasant areas have the great schools:confused2: can anyone give us any advice please as I'm starting to get quite worried, thanks


Yes it can be confusing. Don't understand that myself. I would expect schools in the nicer areas to have higher decile scores than schools in the not so nice areas. 
Hopefully you understand how the decile scoring works ? 
Decile score is calculated from the jobs, earnings & education of the parents who's pupils attend and occupancy of the home etc - it DOES NOT represent how good a school is or how it performs or the teaching quality.
Low score doesn't necessarily mean a not so good school and a high score doesn't necessarily mean a good school. Don't think there are any league tables for this like in the UK.
The scoring system is just a tool used to rank schools for funding off the government.

With that said though how are you ever supposed to make an informed decision of where to send your child - word of mouth, go in and ask ? Seems difficult to choose. Not looking forward to making the decision ourselves in the years to come.


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## kiwiemma (Nov 5, 2009)

That does sound very odd, as the response says the decile rating relates to the incomes of the community from which the school draws its pupils. Sorry if this is obvious (I know kiwis who have got this wrong) but 10 is the highest ranking and 1 is the lowest. Check out the ERO report, that will give you better information than a simple decile ranking. Don't think I can put a link, in here just google ERO report.


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## Slowers0782 (Sep 16, 2012)

escapedtonz said:


> Yes it can be confusing. Don't understand that myself. I would expect schools in the nicer areas to have higher decile scores than schools in the not so nice areas.
> Hopefully you understand how the decile scoring works ?
> Decile score is calculated from the jobs, earnings & education of the parents who's pupils attend and occupancy of the home etc - it DOES NOT represent how good a school is or how it performs or the teaching quality.
> Low score doesn't necessarily mean a not so good school and a high score doesn't necessarily mean a good school. Don't think there are any league tables for this like in the UK.
> ...



Thank you very much for you response, fingers crossed a few more opportunities have come up in Cambridge so we are hoping we can stay here! Speaking to the agents in Hamilton it appears this is how it is and although they agree that the decile rating is not always a true representation of the school the schools and areas we have mentioned do have a bad reputation. I hope when you have to decide things have changed as this is really not a good position to be in, Things are stressful enough coming to the other side of the world


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## escapedtonz (Apr 6, 2012)

Slowers0782 said:


> Thank you very much for you response, fingers crossed a few more opportunities have come up in Cambridge so we are hoping we can stay here! Speaking to the agents in Hamilton it appears this is how it is and although they agree that the decile rating is not always a true representation of the school the schools and areas we have mentioned do have a bad reputation. I hope when you have to decide things have changed as this is really not a good position to be in, Things are stressful enough coming to the other side of the world


Hey no problem.
Cambridge is a beautiful 'village'. 
My company has an office in Hamilton so been up there a few times already in my 6 months in NZ. Drove through Cambridge a few times on our travels. Perfect place to live as its close to the city but out in the country.

Apparently the decile rating system is about to be abolished......well it's the latest proposal so I suppose watch this space.
We have a couple of years to decide yet I though. Our little bundle of craziness only 19 months.
Renting in Wellington for a while and still have a house to sell in the UK before we have to sit down and decide where we want to buy and which schools in the area are good for us.

Good luck with finding the right school and with the move.


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## topcat83 (Apr 16, 2009)

kiwiemma said:


> That does sound very odd, as the response says the decile rating relates to the incomes of the community from which the school draws its pupils. Sorry if this is obvious (I know kiwis who have got this wrong) but 10 is the highest ranking and 1 is the lowest. Check out the ERO report, that will give you better information than a simple decile ranking. Don't think I can put a link, in here just google ERO report.


Hi there - you should be able to put a link - have you tried to? Just copy it in from the browser bar.


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