Year 8 students at Manaia View School who have been there since Year 1. Photo / John Stone
Year 8 students at Manaia View School who have been there since Year 1. Photo / John Stone
Eight schools. At age six.
And it's not uncommon, according to local school principals who are leading local research into why some Northland kids are constantly changing schools, and just how many transient kids there might be out there.
Because it's wrecking their education, tying up educational resources and ingeneral, slowing down our school system. As a parent who has moved several times and had to move children around schools, it is hard.
You watch your kids struggle to make new friends, again. And you hope that it doesn't affect their education. I have moved to further my career, which I hope has flow-on benefits for my family.
Some families move to find stable housing, a safe home life for their kids, or to chase work.
One suspects that we'll learn that a lack of educational stability at an early age, does not grow stable adults. And so the cycle continues. And continues.
Here is hoping that the work Northland educationalists are doing, in this field, enables our kids a chance to jump off the moving truck and on to a school bus, that only goes to one school. It seems obvious though, that if Mum and Dad are stable, then the kids are.
In that regard, again, here we have yet another reason to do what we can to promote economic growth and prosperity in Northland.
