High speed web for Wairarapa schools

All but two of the 69 schools within the Wairarapa electorate boundary had registered interest in using N4L services and 24 schools in the region were either connected or were soon to be connected.

More than a third of schools in the Wairarapa electorate had plugged in to the Network for Learning (N4L) high speed internet system and most were keen to follow suit, according to N4L spokeswoman Julie Landry.

There were more than 225,000 pupils from 700 schools across New Zealand connected to the Managed Network run by the N4L Crown-owned company, Ms Landry said.

All but two of the 69 schools within the Wairarapa electorate boundary, which runs from South Wairarapa in the south to Dannevirke in the north, had registered interest in using N4L services, and 24 schools in the region were either connected or were soon to be connected.

Included in the latest crop of schools to plug in to the Managed Network were Mangamaire Country School, near Pahiatua, and Dalefield School, near Carterton.

Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson said his school was "technically" hooked in to the N4L network but the transition from their former IT system was still incomplete.

"We're excited and it is a privilege to be one of the first schools in Wairarapa to be changing over. It's great."

Mr Jephson said an N4L adviser was helping "design a game plan for our particular school environment" and the system would be soon up and running.

Jo Mahoney, principal of Mangamaire Country School, said the high speed internet network was switched on at the 29-student school on Friday.

She said the students, a relieving teacher, herself and the other fulltime teacher were yet to fully explore the new system, which staff and students had been anticipating for some time.

She said the network would be open for pupils' use before and after school, as "we can never presume everybody has the internet at home".

Ms Landry said about 28 per cent of schools in New Zealand were already running N4L and the uptake in Wairarapa was "very much aligned with this number".

"In addition, several teachers from these schools are also using N4L's new digital learning hub called Pond to discover a wide range of educational resources for their classrooms and share them with their peers."

She said a Managed Network connection was not needed to access Pond and there were more than 1000 teachers throughout New Zealand using the N4L learning hub.

Ms Landry said there were various stages of the Managed Network connection process, which starts when a school signs an agreement with N4L to join the system.

An interactive map of all participating N4L schools may be viewed online at www.n4l.co.nz/rollout/.