Hello all,

Has anyone got any experience of confirming a job in NZ from the UK and then arranging school placements for their children?

I plan to attend the NZ expo in Leeds, UK in October 2008 and was wondering whether this would be too late to arrange for enrolling our children into an appropriate school in an appropriate zone near to where I will be working.

Any suggestions?

Usually you have to be living in the school zone.
I have heard of people that cannot even get a place when they have bought land to build but are not actually living there yet.
So you will probably need to live in zone to get into your chosen school

Hi Jan

It may help more if you give a bit more info, (where and when) as some schools have strict zoning.

We found a rental first then went to the school to enrol.

As for the expo, well it did nothing for us, but worth a trip....

Thanks for the replies.

[Sarah] So, it looks as though we'll have to be over there and already have a place. That sounds understandable, although I was hoping that there might be some assistance through the immigration channels if I was to gain employment through acceptance of a job offer.

[DougieJ] I'd like to supply more information, but at this point we really don't know where we'll be located. I've contacted the Ministry of education to find out details on zoning and the requirements that have to be met.

How long and when did you both enroll your children?
The reason we are asking is that we will arrive in mid January and I'm very conscious of the small amount of time between landing and the start of the new school year - which we believe is the start of February.
(I know that this is very much dependent on the school and the demand for it's places but we are just trying to get a feel for what we can expect when we get to NZ.)

We really appreciate everyone's feedback.

Kind regards,

Jan-Willem.
(picture will be up on profile in a day or so - you've been warned !)

Some schools will give you a place regardless of space if you live in Zone.
Some will allow spaces to be given to out of Zone kids.

If you want a particular good school may be best to rent in that zone as they do not tend to make you move when you move.

Hi,

Thanks for the information and sorry about the delay getting back. (I'll have to check the post notification settings against my profile as I don't get told when I get a reply.!)

We'll want to rent out in or around the North Shore area. If anyone can recommend primary schools that would be worth looking at that would be great.

Bye for now,

Jan-Willem & Anna

I have moved three times since my oldest son started school.

First, you need to know where you are going to be living - ie the exact address. This is because the school zones are determined by address - for example, 1 Joe Blogg Street might be zoned for Kiwi Primary, while 202 Joe Blogg Street might be zoned for Weta Primary.

I haven't yet found any school zone maps on the internet, so it's tricky to find out where is zoned for what. However, for the more desirable schools, the real estate adverts will usually say 'zoned for' such and such a school.

If you are in the zone, your childen will get a place in the state school (mine always have, no matter what time of the year we have moved). If you are not in the zone, and the state school you want is a popular one, then you will probably not get a place.

I don't know what happens if you are in the zone for two schools, this has never happened to us as we have only ever been zoned for one school, other than special character schools, like Rudolf Steiner or Catholic, but I don't know if those have zones.