# Moving to New Zealand



## tonyshearan (Mar 26, 2013)

Our children are aged 12 and 14, we're looking at moving over after our oldest has completed his GCSEs. Has anyone on this forum got children the same sort of ages that has their experience to share with moving across? What do you think of the education? Have your children settled in? Does the work they do in UK schools transfer across or have they had to start again? My husband will have work when he moves across but I will be looking for an admin type role, has anyone had any experience of finding this sort of work that they can share?


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## tamarisk (Apr 26, 2013)

*education - compared to UK*



tonyshearan said:


> Our children are aged 12 and 14, we're looking at moving over after our oldest has completed his GCSEs. Has anyone on this forum got children the same sort of ages that has their experience to share with moving across? What do you think of the education? Have your children settled in? Does the work they do in UK schools transfer across or have they had to start again? My husband will have work when he moves across but I will be looking for an admin type role, has anyone had any experience of finding this sort of work that they can share?


Hi - we have slightly younger children who moved over - it was easy - the local school had places (but check the decile ratings - we had a choice of a decile 5 and a decile 8 school and were v pleased we chose the decile 8) - the kids fitted in quite well - certainly they weren't the first or only kids from the UK. Both were immediately hailed as near-genius, despite being 'average' in UK. My OH and i are both in various sectors of education and think things here are about 2 years below the UK, ie what they do in year 9 -10 here they do in year 7 in UK; UK GCSEs are similar standard to the NZ qualifications for 18 year olds. The curriculum is very similar and there have been no issues with unfamiliar material or approaches. Most of the secondary schools seem to be used to taking on both migrants and foreign students. But they often don't buddy them or help them to settle in - they are just left to their own devices. A bigger problem for us will be if we move back to the UK - our kids will have fallen behind and will be unprepared for the work ethic in many UK schools. So the education system is good as regards a more chilled-out, less pressured and less assessment-driven approach, but less good on actually teaching them anything. There are quite a lot of church and private schools here which seem to be more academic.
as regards to your work, it very much depends where you are - will you be in one of the cities or a smaller town?


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## Liam(at)Large (Sep 2, 2012)

Not sure why you are so obsessed with the decile rating, it has nothing to do with how good a school is, it's simply an indicator of the socio-economic mix that feed the school and how much funding it gets.


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## suevance73 (Jan 17, 2012)

*Schools*

Hi, my husband has been out in Christchurch for a week - he is a Painter and Decorator with a firm based in Chch mainly dealing with EQC work. He has gone out ahead of us mainly to check everything out for us and see if we can afford to live there. We are hoping to join him end Aug this year. Bit tough without him but we are taking it day by day. We have 3 children (16, 5 and 3) My eldest daughter is just about to start her final GCSE exams, another reason why we are waiting to join my husband, so I was wondering how my eldest would fit in with the NZ school system. She hopes to do a fashion course at the 'design & art college of NZ' in Chch, which means she must go back to school to do nz version of 6th form. If we arrive in Aug would she redo part of the equivalent of uk year 11 then move on to 6th form. I will email the secondary school once my husband decides which area of Chch will suit us best. He is rent sharing in Opowa at the mo - bit quiet for us he thinks though, especially for my eldest as I feel she needs somewhere with a but more buzz from day 1! We are thinking possibly Riccarton or we may head out to Rolleston, we have a friend living there, although that too may be a bit too quiet - fine for my two little ones! but my priority is to get my eldest settled asap. Anyway I will stop babbling and hope someone can help with the school issue I have for my eldest and how should will fit into the system. Any advice would be most gratefully received xx


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