NZ Bilingual Elementary School

Because Paul teaches elementary school we wanted to visit a school while in NZ. A very nice lady (Mona) who worked with my brother set up a visit to go to bilingual (English / Maori) elementary classes. It was so cool cos when I left NZ schooling was all in English. So I was just as excited as Paul was and it was great.



The Bilingual kids practice maori cultural traditions in the classroom. We got a maori welcome by the kids first thing in the morning and then we got to visit their classrooms. I loved all the work on the wall ....



... and the bright colours used for posters and pictures. It really brought the classroom alive.



Here is one class that we visited and the kids were so smart for their age.



Here is the other class that we visited (younger kids) and they were a similar age to the kids that Paul teaches. They had really good handwriting, very motivated, fun to chat with and the class was so much fewer in numbers than what Paul has to teach. Some of the biggest differences Paul noticed was that the recess and lunch breaks were longer, school started later, classes were smaller, teachers really get a break time where they can eat, break and be ready for the next block of instruction. This was a great visit!