{"id":17057,"date":"2016-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/supporting-gypsy-day-students\/"},"modified":"2016-02-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T11:00:00","slug":"supporting-gypsy-day-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/supporting-gypsy-day-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Gypsy Day students"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Tim Page, at Riverton Primary School, received the 2015 Southland Primary Principals\u2019 Association Study Award to find out what could be done to help the hundreds of children who were affected by their parents shifting farms mid-year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause schools teach different subjects at different times of the year some children have large gaps in their knowledge because they have changed schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He has found, after talking to other schools in Southland, the problem at primary school level was worst in maths.<\/p>\n

Although literacy (reading and writing) and numeracy (adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying) were mostly taught throughout the year, geometry, measurement and statistics were blocked courses and different schools taught them at different times.<\/p>\n

\u201cA child may learn geometry at the start of the year at one school, then move and learn it again at another but by doing that they will have missed out on another strand such as measurement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He had hoped to find some way for all Southland schools to teach maths in the same order throughout the year but soon found schools were unwilling to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchools all do things in their own way to suit their school and their community and there is no direction from the Education Department about the order that subjects are taught.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does happen in other countries like the UK but that is starting to change because they\u2019re beginning to realise it\u2019s not working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead he wants to develop a programme to find out the gaps in children\u2019s knowledge when they arrive at a new school and then fill them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could give the child a pack that they could take home with them and practice with their parents that would help.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would include games, cards and dice to help them learn in their own time and then they bring it back when they\u2019re done so we can give it to another child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the packs to be fun and interesting so children want to do them and then when they bring them back we will test them again to make sure they\u2019ve now caught up with the rest of the class.\u201d<\/p>\n

His aim this year was to find funding for the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to put something together and test it on the children at Riverton Primary School to see if it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although his focus was on Gypsy Day children, the programme could be used to help any child who shifted primary schools mid-year.<\/p>\n

Riverton Primary School, which has a roll of about 180 pupils, had seven children arrive last year whose parents work on dairy farms and Page thought two left because of parents shifting farms.<\/p>\n

At Lochiel School, near Winton, where he was principal for six-and-a-half years before moving to Riverton Primary School in Term Two last year, 17 of the roll of 68 left last Gypsy Day with four children arriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means possible changes to staffing levels and puts a lot of stress on teachers and on school boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would love to be able to say to employers on dairy farms that if a family with two school-aged children are leaving please replace them with a family with two-school aged kids but of course we can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you can see what happens when we lose a large family from a farm and they\u2019re replaced with a single person.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said sometimes schools only knew when a child was shifting when they didn\u2019t come to school one day, or when new families turned up out of the blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith new children we do our best to contact their old school and have their records sent to us but it doesn\u2019t always happen quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said parents could make it easier for their children by requesting records to be transferred and by contacting the new school before the shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had kids arrive and they have left all their stationery and their books behind at their old school. They have to start all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said cultural differences were also making it harder with many migrant families working on dairy farms not understanding the New Zealand education system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to be in NZ because they know we have good schools for their children but they are often too shy to ask for help. And they think they will disappoint the school by leaving so they leave without saying anything and this has a major effect on the children and their social relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said although most children moved on Gypsy Day at the start of June, schools were also seeing dairy farming children move in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose jobs don\u2019t turn out the way people expected so they move again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The double shift was making it even harder for children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a child comes to a new school it usually takes about six months for them to fit in, to become part of the social environment and to begin learning again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means if they shift every year they are only getting a quality education for half the time they are at school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with a lot of these pupils, because they are shifting so often they don\u2019t easily make new friends. They don\u2019t want to make friends because they know they will have to leave again and leave those friends behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Southland Primary Principals\u2019 Association Study Award is sponsored by Konica and is awarded annually. The recipient receives four weeks paid study leave and $5000 to cover expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Southland primary school principal is trying to help dairy farming children who move schools mid-year because of Gypsy Day.\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t