My Amazing New Zealand Adventure!: My School!!

Hey guys!

As much as it might seem like all I’m doing here is exploring this amazing country, I am here for a very specific and important reason... I’m student teaching here!! The New Zealand Education system is one of the best in the WORLD so I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity to teach and learn here. Every day I get to learn new ways to teach better. I’m overwhelmed a lot, but in a good way!

Something different about New Zealand as opposed to in the US is that here, you start school on your fifth birthday (or as close to it as possible). You then go into a program called “New Entrants.” You’re in the New Entrants program until you’re ready to move onto your first year of school. You earn how to participate in school and begin to learn to read, write and do maths. It’s a nice introductory period for the students. When students are ready, they move onto year 1 or school. Because of this, the year one classes (and consequently year 2 as well) grow throughout the year. It sounds very stressful, but the grades coordinate everything really well so they do the same units all year. Because of this, students are able to hop into the school year easily, they just get different maths practice and reading and writing expectations. This fluidity between the grades could be seen as stressful but it works really well for the students. They get the attention at the specific level they need.

Speaking of getting individualized attention, everything about the New Zealand curriculum is differentiated for each student’s needs. In my classroom, there are 6 reading and 6 maths groups. This is very common in the states for younger grades as well. These different groups carry on all the way into year 8 (the highest year) here in New Zealand, however. I think this is awesome. Students are getting exactly what they need no matter what grade they’re in. This is in part what makes this curriculum one of the best in the world. Differentiation is built into the very make up of their school.

Being here is forcing me to work so hard and I love that! My teacher is so super organized and she’s really helping me figure out a system to get myself really organized as well. We get to school about an hour early every day and stay at least 2 hours late every day. On thursdays we stay as late as we need to to get ourselves all prepared for the following week of school. I love it because it makes the next week fly by so much easier.

Something I really LOVE about the New Zealand schools is how much they emphasize physical fitness. After about an hour at school, it’s Brainfood and Fitness time! The children are allowed to eat a healthy snack, something that is either a fruit or veggie, or non processed. Then they go outside for fitness. They either go for a quick run, or play a game where they’re movin’ and groovin’ in the younger years. The older the students get, the more skill based their fitness becomes. They might run throwing drills, or play a quick game of cricket. That’s for about 10 minutes. After Brainfood and Fitness time, the students work for about another hour or so and then it’s time for their morning tea. They are allowed to eat a snack if they want to, but it’s 15 minutes for them to run around and play outside. After morning tea is over, they get in another hour of school work then it’s time for lunch! They get to eat their lunch outside. Lunch is 50 minutes long. They’re required to sit and eat for at least 15 minutes and after that time is up, they have the rest of lunch time to run around outside. I think it is SO awesome to see kids be so active all day long!

My students are amazing. They’re SO SMART and they’re so darn cute. I’m in year 2, which is comparable to first grade back home. (Most of them are 6 years old, some of them are 7). I have 21 students and I would say about 10 of them are confidently reading chapter books. The other ones are really close. They all also write really well. They still spell some words wrong, which isn’t surprising, but they’re quality of writing is absolutely amazing. They’re writing descriptively and they’re able to recall a lot of details. It’s fantastic. They also are doing really well at their maths. They’re doing addition right now and they’re doing so well at it! I’m so proud and impressed by them!

Here are some cute pictures of my kiddos :)

They wrote poems about themselves and Hannah, my teacher, typed them up and put them on a picture of their face, HOW CUTE!