General News

Encouraged by the ongoing success of the Paper4trees programme, which began in 2001, Bayfair Shopping Centre in Tauranga, has for the third year in a row contributed to the national environmental project run by the Environmental Education for Resource Sustainability Trust (EERST).
To date, 1,701 schools and pre-schools throughout the country have signed up to the major recycling project.

NZEI Te Riu Roa says there are no financial or educational benefits for NZ’ers in public private partnerships.
The government has announced it is moving ahead with plans to establish public private partnerships in education, saying a tender process could start as early as next year.

With last year’s Standout Winner a finalist at the Panda Awards (“the green OSCARS”), the annual The Outlook for Someday film challenge is growing its profile and building international reputations for young NZ film-makers.
The Outlook for Someday is calling for entries to the 2010 film challenge.

The National Foundation for the Deaf (NFD) wants to give people who are hearing impaired and deaf the opportunity to be heard by their Members of Parliament.
NFD chief executive Louise Carroll says the hearing-impaired and deaf have taken a number of serious hits from government decisions over the past year, and the NFD believes part of the reason is that MPs just don’t realise the impact of hearing loss and deafness.

Auckland City Council residents can look forward to free fun and interactive experiences at MOTAT during the month of August.

Congratulations to the newly SunSmart accredited schools in Term two. This is the result of great work done to incorporate Sunsmart practices into their school environment, policy and curriculum.

Ten North Shore schools are benefitting from a substantial investment from the Chinese government in NZ’s first ‘Confucius Classrooms’, set up around the world to assist the teaching of the language and culture of China in schools.
Glenfield Intermediate School and Willow Park Primary School are to be the North Shore’s Confucius Classroom ‘hubs’ for two clusters of ten schools who are among the first in NZ to benefit from the Confucius Classroom Programme.

A nationwide survey of more than 800 volunteer managers has found that the greatest challenge they face is the recruitment of volunteers.
This is followed by not having enough time or money to achieve goals, and matching and retaining volunteers.

The NZQA has awarded Outward Bound the highest rating a tertiary education organisation can receive for its educational performance.
Outward Bound chief executive, Trevor Taylor, said the award of ‘highly confident’ by the NZQA was viewed by Outward Bound staff as further recognition of the hard work done by them in providing the highest quality course outcomes for students.

A snapshot of NZ’s childcare landscape showed that over half of pre-schoolers attended formal early childhood education (ECE) and care, Statistics NZ have announced.
Results from the NZ Childcare Survey 2009 showed that informal care options were also common for pre-schoolers.