Playing a little catch up

Wow! I can't believe it is already the middle of August. The last two months have flown by. The last post I wrote was at the end of June when I was volunteering at Sumner primary school twice a week. I continued to help out with PMP on Wednesday's and Thursday's at Sumner School for a couple more weeks and continued to enjoy the time I spent working as a volunteer. However, as I am planning on returning to Canada in the near future I decided it was time for me to find a paid job where I can save some money to pay for my way home. I plan on writing more about my experience as a volunteer at Sumner School in the following weeks to come.

Finding a job in the education sector in New Zealand can be quite difficult without being a fully qualified teacher with proper certification. Currently there are very few job opportunities within the education sector here in Christchurch, New Zealand. Many schools have recently had to make some cutbacks to staff and therefore the jobs that are available are hard to get, especially without a full teaching certificate. When I was in New Zealand a few years ago, I worked for a company called Select Education where I worked as a relief ECE teacher at early childhood centers around the Christchurch area. I really enjoyed my time working for Select Education and given my extensive background working with young children, I decided I would try to see if there was anything available with the company. I quickly learned that Select Education was no longer around, but that they had been bought out by a larger company called Randstad. When I first searched the education jobs available there were very few and the ones that were available were not for the Christchurch area. I continued to check the job list every few days and eventually a job opportunity opened up looking for early childhood assistants in the Christchurch area. I applied for the job as soon as I saw the post and a week late received a call from the company asking me to come in for an induction meeting and interview. I have now been working as a relief early childhood assistant since July 29th. I have been to over five different early childhood centers so far and I have really been enjoying my experiences working as an early childhood education teacher. It is great to have the opportunity to see all these different centers and to see how each center is run - from the way the rooms are set up to the daily routines of the centers.


In New Zealand, the Ministry of Education has produced an early childhood curriculum policy statement (Te Whariki). The statement is an exciting new development for education in New Zealand as it is the first national curriculum standard for the early childhood sector. "The early childhood curriculum has been envisaged as a whariki, or mat, woven from the principles, strands, and goals defined in this document. A very important aspect of the statement is the fact that it is the first bicultural curriculum statement created in New Zealand. "It contains curriculum specifically for Maori immersion services in early childhood education and establishes, throughout the document as a whole, the bicultural nature of curriculum for all early childhood services" (Lyall Perris, April 9, 2009). The New Zealand early childhood curriculum is centered around four broad principles and five strands. The four broad principles are empowerment (the early childhood curriculum empowers the child to learn and grow), holistic development (the early childhood curriculum reflects the holistic was children learn and grow), family and community (the wider world of family and community is an integral part of the early childhood curriculum) and relationships (children learn through responsive and reciprocal relationships with people, places, and things). The five strands include well-being, belonging, contribution, communication, and exploration. These four principles and five strands together form the framework for the early childhood curriculum. Within each strand there are several goals with learning outcomes developed for each of these goals. The New Zealand ECE curriculum links to the NZ curriculum in schools. Through the early childhood curriculum, children can become properly prepared to transition into school when they turn 5.




Te Whariki - The Woven Mat

It has been such a great educational opportunity for me to work as an ECE teacher so far. I am looking forward to continuing on with this experience as the opportunity is providing me with such a fun and interesting insight into what early childhood education is like in New Zealand. As a physical education major, it is great to have the opportunity working around young children who are at such a fun age for physical development. These children are in the exploration stage - discovering what they can do with their bodies. It is so interesting to watch the development of basic locomotor, non-locomotor, and manipulative skills in young children. It is at early childhood centers where these children are given the opportunity to explore and develop these skills. I look forward to writing more about my experience as an ECE teacher in New Zealand.