Whangarei, Dargaville, Maungaturoto, Kaiwaka...

I spent a couple of days last week in the mid-North and was bowled over by the warm reception we got everywhere. Kamo Intermediate's principal John Smith had previewed the bus visit in the school newsletter, and so there was a good flood of parents as well as Board members coming up to talk. The Intermediate has a really warm atmosphere, with fantastic artwork and great facilities. I remember the angular and rather grim intermediate principal I had (many moons ago!) who demanded that us girls wore regulation underwear and dictated writing lessons to the whole school over the intercom, and was immediately jealous of my nephew who's just started at Kamo!

It was good to talk to a range of Board members from four or five local schools. All of them were passionate about education and proud of the great job their schools were doing, even in the case of one who BOT member who had some disagreement with NZEI's call for a trial of the Standards.

We had more than 60 NZEI members turn out at Horahora School later in the afternoon. It was great to catch up with an old friend too, who is DP there. Then off to Dargaville very early the next morning to Alan Russek's school. Along with parents, early childhood centre staff called by as well as principals from several local schools and NZEI branch folk. After the early start (no breakfast) and a lot of talking outside in the playground and in the staff room, boy did we feel like a large brunch at Dargaville's Blahblahblah cafe! It's amazing how great cafes have sprung up all around the place....we didn't have time to indulge ourselves in Maungaturoto, but I noticed several promising cafes there too! (Whoops, this is starting to sound like a culinary tour!) We hung out with staff from both the primary school and Otamatea College at lunchtime at Maungaturoto - one of the bonuses of this bus tour has been the opportunity it's provided for teachers to talk to each other across schools, and in this case, it was really interesting to hear how secondary teachers have experienced NCEA implementation. Someone pointed out that years 9 and 10 students will soon be the only ones not subjected to standards if the primary ones go through...

We finished the day in Kaiwaka - talking to parents picking up their junior class kids, and then talking with teachers in the staff room. The principal had made a really interesting graph of how the progressions and Standards (don't) match up and there was much passionate discussion comparing the school's intensive consultation with its community over the new curriculum compared with the imposition of the Standards. Then I headed back to Whangarei with our bus, while Frances Nelson flew in to talk at a community meeting that same night in Kaiwaka. My kids are just about used to me being away a few days every week now. My six year old said that if I stayed away too much they might not know me very much any more....! But he also was able to tell me that his teacher had done some maths tests with him this week and he's moved from Circles to Triangles...something he's very proud of!