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Western Leader : November 9th 2010
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3 WESTERN LEADER, NOVEMBER 9, 2010 NEWS The Mad Butcher and Suburban Newspapers Community Trust proudly present their WE NEED YOUR HELP to help the National Burn Centre Please bring this event to the attention of your boss/CEO and ask them to book a table for YOUR COMPANY! All proceeds to the National Burn Centre An ideal way to entertain clients and staff while supporting a very worthy cause. With special guest speaker Friday 3 December From 7.30pm at TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre 770-834 Great South Road, Manukau The Rt Hon John Key Prime Minister be interviewed on stage by Paul Holmes CNZM. Your MC - Kerre Woodham, entertainment by Ewen Gilmour and dance the night away with Black Salt. Tickets are $1850 + gst for a table of 10 and include a uperb three course dinner and complimentary drinks. PLEASE BOOK YOUR TABLE NOW by phoning Shandall on 09-531-5910 or email shandall@madbutcher.co.nz IN BRIEF Teen holidays Teenagers in Avondale have the chance to take part in an outdoor adventure holiday programme at no cost. Youthtown is able to offer its January and April 2011 holiday programmes for free, thanks to the govern- ment's Break-Away funding initiative. Visit www.youthtown. org.nz and fill out the expression of interest form, or call 379-5430. Budget cuts hurt centres By CATHERINE HEALY SOME early childhood education centres in west Auckland fear they may lose qualified teachers now that the impact of the government s Budget cuts are being felt. Centres have just received their November funding -- the first to reflect the reduced rates. Early childhood centres are funded based on how many qualified teachers they have. Pre- viously the target was to have 100 percent of teachers qualified to receive the maximum possible funding. In 2009 the ministry revised the target to 80 percent registered teachers by 2012, mean- ing centres that worked to upskill their workforce lose out on funding they had budgeted for. Many centres are not getting much income from parents either. Fa amasani Aoga Amata Samoan childcare centre in Massey has a standard rate of $3 an hour but administrator Lusila Koro says she s had to drop that to as low as $1 for some. With the economy the way it is, some parents have lost their jobs and say they can t bring their children in any more. Some parents say they can only bring their child for three hours a week, because that s all that WINZ will fund. We worked hard to get five qualified teachers for our 30 chil- dren. There s no question we ll have to lose a non- qualified teacher at some point. We d rather keep the qualified teachers, Ms Koro says. Meg Moss, Auckland co-ordinator of the early childhood network for NZEI -- the teachers union and professional organisation -- says the cuts are bad news for children and teachers. What has been most difficult is the last eight years it s been push, push with the pressure to get people qualified, and overnight that has changed. Ms Moss works at Minimarc childcare cen- tre in Mt Albert. Our parents are not particularly well paid and we are trying to absorb the funding changes without putting fees up. We will have to cut things like teacher professional develop- ment. Head teacher Christina Swift from Grange Preschool in Henderson, a small cen- tre with 50 children, says they are trying to avoid putting up fees. We ve warned our parents we may have to put fees up next year but we re brainstorming every way we can to avoid doing so. Education Ministry spokesman Karl Le Quesne says the govern- ment had to make some hard decisions in the 2010 Budget to manage the rising costs of early childhood education. He says the funding change has created savings of $91.8 million. Waitakere and North- land will be the first two areas that benefit from this funding boost. Ocean voyage: Maria Galbraith, a teacher at Summerland Primary School, has been selected to accompany three students on a trip to the sub-Antarctic islands. Photo: CATHERINE HEALY Teacher answers island bird call By CATHERINE HEALY Spending a week on a navy vessel cruising around New Zealand s sub-Antarctic islands is a rare opportunity. But bird lover Maria Galbraith is getting that chance after she was selected to super- vise three secondary school students on a week-long trip leaving from Bluff on December 6. The Summerland Pri- mary School teacher and the students are joining Department of Conservation staff on board the HMNZS Wel- lington and the group will get involved in their work. New Zealand s sub- Antarctic islands are made up of five groups, including the Auckland Islands and the Antipo- des Islands. They are national nature reserves, home to half of the world s sea birds and some of the most significant popu- lations of many species, including the southern royal albatross, the yellow-eyed penguin and the New Zealand sea lion. I m sure we ll all get seasick, but it s a trade- off. A couple of days leaning over the rails in return for seeing things like the albatross popu- lation is worth it. The 29-year-old is on leave from her Hender- son school on a year- long fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand and is studying harrier hawks in the urban environment. She says the sub- Antarctic islands have World Heritage status and anyone landing there must have a per- mit and be with a DOC representative. There s an aware- ness of the human impact over the years of whalers and so forth, and now they re trying to get the islands back to what they used to be, the Avondale resi- dent says. At Summerland Pri- mary Miss Galbraith helps run a conser- vation club for pupils and is looking forward to passing on what she s learned this year. My fellowship is all about getting out there and experiencing sci- ence and taking it back to the classroom. The students selected are Matthew Skelton- Price from Selwyn Col- lege, Jaime-Leigh Dredge from Reefton Area School and Callum Bolitho from Nayland College in Nelson.
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