New Zealand is situated in the South Pacific, the nearest landmass is a small offshore island we fondly call Australia. We have two main islands very creatively named the North Island and the South Island. No guesses as to which is which.
Maungaraki is situated in the Western hills of the Hutt Valley. Lower Hutt is the name of the city in the lower valley and this city is located about 15kms from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Wellington is located at the southern most tip of the North Island.
If you have seen our movie you will see that we look out over Wellington Harbour.

The school is set in the hills with native bush bordering on two sides. With the rest of the suburb of Maungaraki continuing up the hill. We are next to a suburban shopping centre and we have large fields for the children to play on.

http://www.maungaraki.school.nz/

At the moment we are in Spring. This is the time when we see lots of newborn lambs as we drive through the country. Our weather at the moment is very changeable. We are being affected by the almost crazy weather that the rest of the world is experiencing. We have had two storms this year when we have had to close the school. One was in February – our summer – and the other was at the end of winter. Both of these storms caused a lot of damage.

Participating Students & School Demographics

Children start school on their fifth birthday, no matter what the time of year. We go from year 1 to 8 which is 5 to 13 year olds. We are a public, government funded school in a middle-income area that accepts anyone who wishes to attend our school, although most children are from Maungaraki.
Most of our students speak English with some students coming from a bilingual background including Maori, Polynesian, Indian or Chinese.

We have a strong Ecology Of Learning focus using the theories of De Bono Thinking Hats, Costa’s Habits of Mind, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. We enjoy using the Mac technology to create Music and iMovies, we think the kids are better at this than we are, and we are happy about this.