01.58.00

Michaela Walls reading with her teacher at pre-school kindergarten

...That juggler.

NATSOT Classroom

Teacher

What does that say?

Child1

Rainbow

Teacher

That's excellent

Child 2 reading

Number two monkey went over the river. Number three monkey went over.

Child 3 spelling

Teacher

Child 3

.. i..t..

Good, so what do you think it's saying. Lid.

Lid.

02.50

Int. Rosemary Vivien

Deputy Principal, Edendale Primary

The children at our school always want to come to school.

3.00

v/o

Children singing

In New Zealand kindergarten is MORE than a place where small children are nursed.

v/o

It's like a greenhouse for the smallest plants.  Here, the learning process begins.  Everything which takes place here is carefully coordinated with what will take place later at school.

v/o

According to the law, all must start school when they turn six.  Most, however, start as soon as they turn five.

03.21

Int. Michaela Walls

It's my last day because I'm nearly five.  One more sleep. 

Q. And what happens after your birthday.

Then I go to my big school.

03.34

v/o

The philosophy and necessity of "day-care" , as known in Europe is virtually unknown.  40% of women stay home, and take part in children's activities - especially on the last day of

kindergarten.  Day care for five year olds is outside the philosophy in a system, which focuses on the quality and content of education - and where the staff in both kindergarten and schools are all teachers, working with identical principles.

04.00

Sound up

04.07

Int. Dennis McGraf, Headmaster, Auckland College of Education

We want to gain a system where it flows automatically and leads from one education point to another point instead of having a disjoint break and then children go to another system or another school and so on.  We are hopeful that we'll get that with this continuous curriculum.

04.25

Michaela's birthday party

There's lovely flowers on them.

v/o

Turning five is very special.  Michaela has prepared herself for that day.  She has already visited her new school a couple of times.  Still - it's a huge change for a small person.

Teacher

Michaela is how old.  Five.  And what do you do when you are five.  You go to school.  Michaela is going to go to school on Monday.  Which school are you going to Michaela.

Michaela

Kohimarama Primary

05.02

Int. Louis Fowler, 6 years old

Q. Do you remember when you started school.

A. Yep.

Q. What was that like.

A. It was scary.

Q. Why.

A. I didn't know anybody.

Int. Fern Moorhead, 7 years old

Q. Do you think for all children its a special day in New Zealand to become five.

A. Definitely, its very special to become five, knowing that you'll be at school, meeting lots of new people, its exciting and yes I think its quite important.

05.30

Int. Erica Nasbett, 7

I was really quite excited.

Q. Why.

Because I wanted to go to school.

Int. Daniel Ross, 7

Q. Did you like it?

A. No, not really.  But I got use to it.

05.44

Int. Rosemary Vivien, Deputy-Headmaster, Edendale Primary School

We want to do well with children, we want them to be successful.  We want their self esteem levels to be high and we want them to know that they're succeeding even if its only in something small.  We want to be positive with them and let them know that they can do something well and they're important.

04.10

v/o

Teacher Ann Mary Quinn going to school

It's Monday morning - early.  Teacher, Ann Mary Quinn is on her way to school.  She will be in the class one hour before the kids arrive at nine.

06.16

Ann Mary Quinn

NATSOF

Did you have a good weekend?

V/o

Ann Mary in empty classroom

And she doesn't leave till five - spending the afternoons planning her programmes and talking to colleagues.

The hour before the children all arrive is important.  It leaves time for the last preparations, and to talk to the kids and their parents in a relaxed atmosphere - a contact often missing in European schools where parent interest is lagging.  Teachers are stressed and their work-hour regulations impractical.

Sound Up - pupils arriving

Morning.

Hello Georgia ...

06.49

v/o

Ann Mary Quinn gets a new pupil today.  Michaela starts in her class.

07.00

Sound Up

Michaela and family enter class

Hi Michaela...

07.19

v/o

Michaela's future starts today - school from 9am to 3pm for years to come.

Sound Up

07.22

v/o

Today she has twenty classmates.  But new classmates will keep coming - when they turn five.   Ann Mary Quinn started her school year on February 1st with only three pupils.  Then came one more. Then another. One by one.  This system gives the teacher the chance to create her own culture in the class, and to get to know each child and the parents.  But it is demanding.  She will teach various levels at the same time - and gets help from parents.

07.40

Sound Up

.. Good Girl ..

Int. Terry Walls, Michaela's father

Businessman

Can't five be too early to start school for a child?

No, I think Michaela's been more than ready for it.  The pre-school has helped in encouraging her and getting her right for that day.  She's more than ready to learn and concentrate on those things.  She's more than ready for it.  Five's not too early.

08.12

Children crossing road & map of NZ

Michaela's school is located in a rather affluent neighborhood in New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, with one million citizens out of New Zealand's four million.

Classroom scenes

New Zealand is a multi-ethnic society - a fact New Zealanders are proud of, even though conflicts are constantly brewing with New Zealand's indigenous people, Maoris.  While European culture clearly dominates in New Zealand, immigrants from China, Korea, Polynesia and South Africa have poured into the country over the last few years.

It does stress the school system, since most of these children do not speak English.  According to European experience a school Edendale, with 32 ethnic groups, located in one of Auckland's socially deprived areas, would be up against the odds.

08.53

Piece to Camera

Reporter Gitte Detlefsen

Edendale Primary School in Auckland has 710 pupils coming from 32 different countries - and it is ranked among the very best schools in New Zealand.

Edendale staffroom

Rosemary Vivien works here.  She has visited Denmark several times to talk about her school and the New Zealand system - and the school is a magnet for teachers from abroad - studying the system.

09.17

Sound Up

This is a tricky one....

v/o

The kids learn to spell the words as they hear them.

09.26

Int. Rosemary Vivien

A. There's always a focus on the positive.  We focus on what the children do well, what they can do already and what they need to do next.

Q. Don't you ever tell them what they are not good at?

A. No.

Q. Why not.

That's not part of the philosophy of the way we look at education.  We look at children as all being good at doing something, no matter how small that little step of learning is, and that they can do something better.  So we're looking at what they can do and what they are able to do next.  We don't look at what they are not able to do.

v/o

09.58

At whiteboard in classroom

When the kids have finished a sentence, the teacher focuses on the correct letters.  And the correct word is written beneath.  The basic principle is to motivate and to stimulate the children to love to learn.  A reassuring environment is a pre-condition for success, and the teachers follow clearly defined and identical ways in dealing with the children.

v/o

In the playground

The bullies, the destructive boys so often accused of destroying teaching - how do they handle them in New Zealand?

Int. Rosemary Vivien

The types of programmes that are offered to children in the schools help them to succeed and they help them to want to learn so generally we don't have children like that who stick out.  The children are taught to be nice to each other and they are.  So we don't have children who you would say are the naughty children.  We don't classify children like that and the programmes that we have don't encourage children to be naughty.

11.12

Michaela in playground

But do they exist at Kohimarama Primary?

11.17

Int. Ann Mary Quinn

No, and as a teacher of 20 + children my main way of maintaining a quiet noise level is to have activities and programmes and projects for my class where they are busy enjoying doing those so they don't have the desire or time or need to be making a lot of raucous basically.

Q. Don't you have to shout loud to keep them quiet?

11.50

Int.Ann Mary

A. No, I don't believe that's an appropriate way of channeling a child's behaviour.  I know that with talking with a number of other teachers I know that if my tone is quiet and friendly then that's the type of response that I get from the children.

12.13

v/o

Even though Ann Mary Quinn is delayed after recess, teaching has started.  The kids organise themselves.

12.25

v/o

And, in the second grade, next door, the kids are being taught - on the floor, like in all schools.  When they do work at tables, they have no regular seats.  They write at one table, read at another.

12.46

Frederik - Danish pupil

And this is Frederik, he is Danish, and has lived in New Zealand for six months.  Having finished his report he gets a book.  Kids are encouraged to read a lot from early on.  Frederik's father works in New Zealand.  His mother stays home - being a teacher herself, she studies the education system, and compares it to the Danish one she comes from.

13.10

Int. Kisser Wagner, Danish teacher

Q. If you could characterise the biggest difference between the Danish and the New Zealand education systems, what would that be?

Int. Kisser Wagner

A. The biggest difference is the impressive knowledge the teacher has about each child, from the very first moment the child starts school, because of the effort the school makes to get to know the family.  The parents are welcome in the morning.  You meet and discuss the educational progress.  Add to that the teachers' knowledge about the individual child, his or her need - that is an important difference.

13.46

Int. Hans Peder Wagner - Danish Exporter

You offer each pupil a tailor-made education and involve the parents and the whole family in the effort of reaching the targets.

14.01

v/o

Frederik reading

The close contact to the parents is a strong element in linking the school to the world around the school.  Parents participate in the teaching process - in more than one sense.  Foreign-language children get a helping hand or parents may participate in decorating.

14.28

Int. Maxine Smith-Pilling

Q. How long do you normally spend at school?

A. About five hours a week and in that time I make resources on a Monday and then I parent help on a Tuesday. 

Q. What do you mean, make resources?

A. If teachers have any artwork they want mounted, book mending, any resources that they find it hard to fit into their day we'll do that for them.

15.00

Trainee teachers learning guitar

When the close cooperation between school and parents works so well, and the whole system is so closely integrated, it is a consequence of the system's whole philosophy of teaching.  We are at the Teachers College in Auckland.  These young people are being trained to become kindergarten teachers.

Int. Dennis McGraf, Headmaster, Auckland Teachers' College

Here the teacher is concerned about teaching children, not concerned about teaching maths or about science or about social sciences, the whole focus is on the child and helping that child to learn.  It's quite a different approach from being a teacher to being a person who is helping children to learn.

15.30

Trainee teachers with blocks

These will become primary school teachers - both groups are taught in the same place and along the same principles - whether they will teach in kindergarten or school.

15,45

Int. Dennis McGraf, Headmaster, Auckland College of Education

I think they learn from each other.  There's no question about that.  I think the staff learn from each other and they learn the importance of a curriculum that's seamless in our terms.  That means it runs right from early childhood, right through to year 13 in schooling and I think there has been a lot of learning and cooperation from people as they work together.

16.03

v/o

But the school is NOT the teachers' school.  The school is the children's school - and their parents have the power.  Power to elect five to seven members of the school board.  The principle has his or her seat and the teachers have one seat. 

16.15

This board - controlled by the parents' representatives - has the full economic, judicial and pedagogical responsibility.

16.32

School is free - but the schools have to generate extra funds.  The Government does provide a basic budget, determined on the basis of how many children, the affluence of the area, the ethnic composition of the students - and the Education Review board controls and evaluated the individual school boards - and the teachers.

16.45

Int. David Whalley, Education Review Board

We go out to evaluate the schools, to evaluate the quality of the education that they're providing and to make sure that they're being managed in the way that they're expected to be managed.

16.59

v/o

The Board's specially educated staff inspects schools in general every third or fourth year.  They interview the board, check the administration, check curriculum, interview the teachers, sit in on classes, interview the pupils - and evaluate whether the teachers live up to the charter worked out by each school and the individual teacher.

17.16

Int. David Whalley

We write reports on the schools and in the reports we include recommendations for change and we point out to the boards who manage the schools the sort of things they must do in order to bring schools up to standard.

Int. Rosemary Vivien

Q. Do you think all schools are happy to meet them?

A. No, not always.  

Why not?

Some schools see the Review Officers as a big brother type of approach where they're coming in to be looked at and maybe found fault with.

17.55

v/o

Government buildings and flag

If school boards fail to follow directions from the Review Board the Minister of Education can fire the school board.  The Minister is located in Wellington.  It was here the Labour-party turned the established ways of New Zealand upside down in 1989 - including the education system.

18.07

Int. Wyatt Creech, Minister of Education, Wellington, NZ

Q.  What did you want to obtain by changing it (the system)?

A. To focus on the kind of world that young people will enter into.  Much more technological, much less the old dark times when you left school, did three years of tertiary study and you were set up for life.  You teach people the skills that they need to be able to learn rather than the facts that they know when they leave school so they can continue to absorb facts long after they leave school because they've got the right skills.

18.40

Sound up

Michaela at home

....I can't wait to go to school again...

19.02

Int. Sandy and Terry Walls

Q. Now Michaela has been to school for a few days, how's it going?

A. The first day was a breeze.  Terry said to me, I can't believe it.  I wonder how many parents have it so easy, sending a child to school because it was so good.  But,  yesterday when I took her she had a little moment when she was crying and she had no friends and she didn't want to go to school.

It'll take her a week or two, but once she makes friends, those are the most important things for children, to have friends where ever they go, but once she's done that and adapted then I think it will be fine.

v/o

Michaela goes to bed.  Father reads story

Michaela gets her good night story - while in Europe kids are waking up, and on their way, to, a very often, very different school.

19.53

Int. Dennis McGraf

We're aiming at citizenship, we're aiming at the future.  We're aiming at a world of employment.  We're aiming at an international education.  And all with all those things we're aiming at we're trying to build an education system that allows people to contribute to the best of their potential in a global world.

Int. Rosemary Vivien

If I was a child that was being told every day what I couldn't do rather than what I could do I don't think I'd want to go to school.

Michaela in bed

Good night...

20.30

ENDS