This week has been mostly about schools and colleges. On Monday we made the call to the local intermediate school for Barney, Longbeach (www.longbeach.school.nz), paid a visit and arranged a start date for wednesday. On Tuesday we took Barney shopping for his uniform. The uniform in NZ is a dream – shorts and long socks until year 11 in college. Another stand out thing was that no shoes in the classroom and at break time most of them run around in bare feet outside too. Sports don’t involve stupid kit changes that get lost. On the down side you are expected to supply all their stationary and books but that was all readily available in most office supply stores. Here’s Barney looking like a native.



And this morning he caught the school bus for the first time.

On first inspection the education system in NZ is so much more relaxed than in the UK. There doesn’t seem to be that intense teaching to the test that has so corrupted the UKs education system. It also seems that only in the UK is there a paedophile hiding under every rock and every fence post...

Barney came home and when asked ‘what was your first day like?’ he flopped into an armchair with this happy exhausted face and said dreamily ‘Brilliant’. That never happened before...