Today, I think, has to have been the longest day of my life. Certainly since coming to New Zealand.

I have felt like I’ve been trapped in some educationally-bent episode of 24.

The following takes place between 8pm (the night

before) and 12pm the day of the ERO visit.

If I could do the tick-dum, tick-dum noise I would:

8pm (last night) My Prinicpal calls for a quick chat about the run through of the day, beginning with “You know they’re coming a bit earlier, don’t you?”

9.pm (ish) last night, I am reviewing some plans for the ERO visit. Running through the day in my head, checking the resources et al.

11pm-1pm Still running through the events of tomorrow while relieving my bodily system of dinner. I wonder if I ate something funny, I’m not laughing- that’s just great.

2.30am Son wakes me with news he needs the toilet- what a fine time for him to be trying to get out of the ‘overnight nappy’

3.30am finally manage to get to sleep (did I mention, my boy fell asleep whilst on the loo about 2.34am)

6am Woken by son saying – “I can’t go to sleep!” Probably has something to do with you having slept 11 hours I manage NOT to say. Anyway I’m up heading toward the day

7.03am I’m out the door for the $10 ride to school – It takes me 30minutes – 36 km but I measure in the cost of fuel now, not distance.

7.30am (give or take the logging truck I followed up the Taihape road) I arrive at School. Final prep for the visit – remember they are coming in early- I want to check the students desks – if they ask to see an example of the writing matrix in the students books I want to have every confidence that I can open any students desk without the fear of having my digits chewed off by any lurking rodents.

8.25am First bus arrives and I begin my mantra for the morning. “Have checked morning routine, do you have your writing kit out, sharp pencil, been to the loo, cut your toe nails, removed the boggies from your sleeves.

8.40am ERO due any minute, students appear ready and I struggle to find them extra stuff to do to keep them off the computer games (they are maths games- most can be found on my delicious account so its all educational stuff, but not a good first impression I guess)

9am Still no sign of ERO, call comes via the secretary, they’ve gone to the wrong school- That poor principal, just imagine ERO turning up on your door step, no warning just a friendly “Hello, we’re the ERO team come to inspect your school.” – ERK! Apparently they did not actually arrive at the school before they realized- but saying they did paints a much more amusing picture.

9.30am The Board begin to arrive, some earlier than others but all looking a little nervous- Funny that, I was nervous meeting the board for the first time, so where does that put me in the pecking order?

10.05am ish Inspectors arrive. They meet the board and we in the class are finishing up writing and heading toward fitness- I’m actually very disappointed they missed the writing lesson as the principal and I team teach it in a very inter-reactive way (if there is such a word).

10.10am We’re in doing Reading- Big book is on the IWB. Wish I’d printed it out to show then later but hey ho.

10.45am ERO appear in my room as I am mid flow with a reading group. Lots of positive feedback about classroom displays looking great and ‘feel of the room’ being directed toward student learning. Yippee.

11.00am Morning tea. I walk into the meeting one of the inspectors is having with the chair of the board. Oops! Then they have to leave the staffroom on account of my presence- Double Oops!

11.20am DEAR time in the classroom. Observation begins. I hate the few minutes at the start of the session while students prepare themselves for their learning. It always appears chaotic but in reality on lasts a few minutes (despite it feeling like an age when the inspector is right there).

11.42am Been working with a maths group and have set them off on an independent task. One inspector is now working with them. Not sure if it’s a good thing or not, so I head over to check. Everyone is smiling so I return to the individual kid I’m working with. With my current maths group numbers being 2,1 and 2 it is hard to argue that the learning isn’t personalized.

12.30am Lunch- I’m on duty so I sit and eat with the kids- We get into a great conversation about middle names, whose got one, who hasn’t. Then they spend the next 7 minutes trying to guess mine…. And succeed I have to add. These kids are not worriwed about our visitors. And rightly so, I’ve never met a group of kids so supportive of one another and clued in socially and educationally. These kids ROCK and I’m so happy to be called their teacher.

I’m going to leave it there for now but the afternoon was equally eventful. 10.32pm I’m signing off.

I am not a member but I happended to leaf through a copy of the October 15 edition on the NZEI mag and came across two articles that sparked my interest.

The first is entitiled ‘National’s school policy of creeping privatisation gets the thumbs down’. According to the article John Key let slip that a National government would give serious consideration to private developers to build their own schools. ‘Let slip’?? is that not political speak for ‘floating an idea’, ‘taking the temperature of public opinion’? I digress however.

The NZEI’s Irene Cooper basicly shot the whole thing down in flames saying that education for our children would be compromised by a desire to see profit. She warned that renting out of premises for ‘out of hours’ groups would undermine the learning and resourcing of a school.

So the private firm would want to hire out rooms after school to the karate club or toast masters or perpatitic music specialists or the Kapa Haka group or the Samoan Church on a Sunday? Those money grabbing privateers! Hang on, don’t schools do that now?

She also talks about the company’s pulling out willy-nilly (my words). But is there not a sense in which investing in schools is a safe option? There is always going to be schools in some form or other, I could see the company’s pulling out only after the rest of their business has gone belly up. There is so much red tape and compliance surrounding schools, a commitment from the company to a five or ten year plan would not be hard to add into the mountain of papers that need to be signed. But then I’m educator and not an investor or economist, so what do I know?

She states that the company would have too heavy a hand in the delivery of the curriculum. Well, gosh! Perhaps then the curriculum would begin to be shaped for the economy it is creating workers for. Besides we have a new national curriculum to be the guide at the front and there is always ERO bringing up the rear with the big stick.

The second story is on the back page entitled: “Moratorium urged on funding for-profit ECE centres” A report highlighted the need for a strong and coherent vision for the early childhood sector, that the service needs to be for all families in terms of hours of operation, location and affordability”

But then it stated the primary reasons for the moratorium as being ‘poorer working conditions for teachers, excessive workloads, less time for professional development and higher staff turnover” – sounds more like the state sector to me than ABC. But then I’m not in it to know. Let’s remember that we’re in it for the children. If state run ECE centres provide the BEST possible care for our children, free of charge, then they will be able to compete with private company’s. If however the private sector can provide quality educational experiences for our under-fives the public will be aware of that too and seek out those centres. As for me and my family, we take our son to an ABC centre in the wrong direction for our work, adds time and inconvenience to our mornings and afternoons (yes I do a pick once a week), why do we do it? Because it got recommended to us as being somewhere with quality care and educational opportunites. So when people talk about hours and location and affordability I confess, I scoff. These are our children we are taliking about, what parent puts convenience and an easy life above providing the best they can for their children? What is this all about? Is it attempt to establish a base of support against ABC for not towing the labour party line over ‘free childcare for over 3’s’.

Free? Ha! If they’d called it ’subsidised’ in the first place there would BE no issue. But I digress again.

So what is really the problem with Private company’s investing in schools and ECE? What are the experiences of this overseas? There has got to be more to this than socialist idealism. One education for all is fine as a guiding principle just so long as the ‘all’ does not include my son.

I don’t want ‘one education’ for my son. I want the BEST education for him.