International Contacts

I am so amazed at my connections internationally!!! I have reached out to Dr. Kamu in Kenya regarding poverty. Her emails are delayed a few days so I am waiting to hear back from her. I am sure she will have insight regarding poverty in her country. My contact from New Zealand has given me such a detailed account of early learning trends and issues in New Zealand. I have also emailed this week regarding poverty. I have not heard back from her as of yet. As soon as I do I will relay her insights as well.

The ideas from New Zealand are highly respected. I do however think they differ from our philosophies. I have enclosed her email to give you an idea of what her classroom looks like:

Hi Catherine

Our Kindergarten offers mixed age sessions for children from 2.5-5years old. In NZ we start school when they turn 5 and it could be any time of the year.  Parents choose session times for their children and we run 2 sessions a day 8am-12.15 and 1pm- 3.30pm.  We have a maximum of 30 children in the morning session with around 20 in the pm session and always have a ratio of 3 qualified teachers with a bachelor of education degree.  In NZ highly qualified teachers are respected  but recently the govt has decided to cut back funding the amount of expectation of qualified and experienced staff.  We have always been 100% qualified and trained here but now in other areas of NZ it is around 60% trained or less.

Parents of children who are 3-5 years old in NZ are funded for 20 free hours of early childhood education by the govt so we have high attendance rates.  Over and above that 20 hours they are charged a fee.  It is the governments ambition to promote the early years as easy access for all families while helping to cut costs.

We have a Early Years Curriculum document called "Te Whariki" and you can find more information on this on the nz Ministry of Education website.  It is what our teaching and learning programmes are measured by and is a very inclusive and bicultural document.  It has principles of Empowerment, Holistic development, family and community and Relationships as its core.  It is also made of of strands such as- wellbeing, Belonging, contribution, Communication and Exploration.  I believe NZ curriculum is held very highly in other countries and we are proud of what we achieve in our early years.  The emphasis is always on the 'teaching and learning' not 'what children are doing'..

 

I am going to do some research on the "Te Whariki." That was of interest to me as was the emphasis on teaching and learning and not what the children are doing. 

I appreciate the input of these contacts. They help broaden our horizons and our perspective.