My family and I have been seriously considering immigration to the beautiful country of New Zealand. We have most of the info we need and think we will be able to generate enough points to be at least given residency status. My husband is a journeyman stone mason, also lays brick, block, tile ect... Our biggest question would be how easy will it be for him to be able to find work? We are hoping to maybe to have a job secured before we file our paperwork. Also have not been able to find much info on schooling in NZ, we have 3 children who have always been homeschooled. Will I be able to continue to homeschool, or will it be neccasary to send them to a school? And if I have to send them, are the schools better than here in USA (another school shooting this week)? We have been traveling this country in a rather nomadic lifestyle, and would in time like to settle down permanantly, but hope to still travel and see what NZ has to offer. Much love and Blessings to all
OK, on the job thing, I've got no idea. Most of us here are uni students and so aren't out in the big bad world yet. The schooling system here is fine, depending on where you live. We have a rating system for schools from one to ten and how high you are depends on how much money you get from the government and what kind of resources you have (ie decile ten = good, decile one = very bad). It all depends on the area you live in. You can homeschool your kids, there's no requirement for it to be in connection with a church either as I know thats a requirement in some places in the states. We have something called the New Zealand Correspondence School which sends out the work to kids who are either homeschooled for various reasons or live too far away in a rural area from a proper school. Also, we've never had a school shooting. Um... Any other questions?
Thanks for the info, school was my main worry. We are just starting the process it has taken us almost 4 years to get this far, one has to be pretty commited or independently wealthy to get through the process. It will be about 6mos to a year before we will be leaving the USA. Probably we will start in the Wellington area, but hope to be able to travel before we decide on a spot. I would like to maybe make a few more contacts before we go, I was emailing one guy pretty steady until his daughter got sick and I haven't heard from him in awhile. NZ has an excellent amount of resources for those wanting to live there actually. Maybe some links to message boards in NZ or anything you think we should know?
I'll try and find some links, but I do know that wellington has some good schools (having grown up there though, I'm biased I guess ) If you want to pay, the private schools are usually very good at getting results(as in high grades) but they are also kind of stifling. The state-run schools have larger classes and are therefore less personal/one-on-one, but you don't have to conform as much. And, like Tamsyn said, school shootings are pretty foreign here, which can only be a good thing. and home schooling is also sweet as.
edit: i had a huge rant about why I am leaving NZ for good. I deleted this, and say I don't think anyone should move here to NZ, unless you are using NZ as a backdoor to get into Australia. goodluck i would not move my family here, in fact we are trying to leave, and will be leaving this year.
Hey, with the working thing, is a stone mason like a builder? cos if it is or if they work with builders then yer he probably will find work here as atm there's a pretty big building boom going on in the top half of the north island especially. (just thought i should add that)
actually thats true. I know that its fucking difficult to get a builder in wellington at the mo cos they're all still catching up on work cos of those damn floods ages ago. We've got a hole in our ceiling that we can't get fixed cos we can't get anyone in to do the work (ceiling, not roof).
my understanding of the New Zealand decile ratings were that they were on the "richness of the area the school services" and had nothing to do with the quality of education provided. it is just a tendancy for a poor area to have worse schools due to the student behaviour and the fact that good teachers prefer to go to places where students are more well off. (Some good teachers that is) the rating system was pretty flawed, since the school i was at had a huge population of low income families, but was near a rich neighbourhood, so was classed as decile 9 (rich) but in reality the students going to it were not that rich. it was a good school though. Alltaken
