What is it like to go to school in England?

Our twitter friends Room 4A from Tollgate Primary School in Eastbourne, UK sent us a questionnaire about going to school in New Zealand. Our responses are in red and theirs are in blue. Where do you think you would prefer to go to school?

Hello from 4A At Tollgate School, Eastbourne, UK

Here are some of the things we would like to know about your school.

What is the name of your school and class?

Room 5 at Halsey Drive School

4A (Year 4, teacher Mrs Allen) Tollgate Junior School

Where in the world is your school?

Auckland, New Zealand

Eastbourne, East Sussex, United Kingdom

How many classes are there in your school?

21

13

How far away is your school from the beach?

About 1km. Our school is right by Manukau Harbour

Our school is 0.7km from the nearest (stony) beach with cold water! It's the English Channel

Do you wear school uniform?  If so, what colour?

Yes. Green Polo Shirt, Navy shorts, pants or culottes and a navy fleece jacket in winter

Yes we wear a blue jumper, shirt and a blue and grey striped tie, with trousers or shirts.

How many pupils do you have in your school?

500

420

How many teachers are there?

22

We have 17 teachers, a head teacher and a deputy head teacher

How many children in your class?

25

31 but classes have between 28 and 34 pupils

What is the name of your Head teacher?  Do you have a Deputy Head teacher?

Mrs Davies-Crook is the principal and Mrs Ritchie and Mrs Strang are the deputy teachers

Mr Dennis and Mrs Fegan is our deputy

How old is your school?

The school opened in 1968

Ours is 48 years old

Do you have school pets?

No

We have guinea pigs and African Giant Snails

What facilities do you have?

Swimming Pool, Two Playgrounds junior and senior, tigerturf court, sand pit, library, fields

Hall, computer suite, field, 2 playgrounds, library, stage and recording studio.

What days do you go to school?

Monday - Friday

Monday to Friday

How many year groups in your school?

6

We have 4 year groups (yrs 3-6)

Do you have a nursery?

No we don’t have a kindergarten

No nursery as we are a junior school only (ages 7-11)

What do you have for lunch?  How many school cooks do you have?

We don’t have any school cooks we bring our own lunch to school

We can bring our own lunches or have a meal from the canteen.  We have 4 cooks in our kitchen

How long is your school day?

8.55am - 3.00pm

We start at 8.45 and finish at 3.20

How many different nationalities come to your school?

In our class we have NZ European, Samoan, Maori, Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, Fijian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese students and our teacher is English

We have Polish, Australian, Indian, Chinese, Irish, Armenian, Iranian, Italian, Spanish children in our school.

What subjects do you do? What languages do you learn?

Maths, Science, Written Language, Reading, Inquiry, Spelling, Handwriting, Dance, PE and we learn Te Reo Maori for our language lesson

English, maths, science, history, geography, RE, Art, Design and technology, PE, PSHE, music, French.

Do you have assembly?

Yes, we have it on Friday afternoons. Each class is responsible for one each week. We just had ours last Friday.

We have assembly every day. Monday with the head teacher, Tuesday singing, Wednesday with our local vicar, Thursday in our year groups, Friday celebration assembly.

What is the time difference between your school and ours (we are in GMT)?

If it is 12pm here it is 1 o’clock in the morning for you.

Do you have Interactive whiteboards and iPads?

Yes 5 I pads and 5 Chrome books and an Apple TV in our class at all times and we can book extra devices

We have interactive whiteboards in all classes and 8 iPads per class.

Have you read any Harry Potter books?

Yes some of us have

We read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in class and then we watched the film.  After that we went to the Harry Potter studio tour on a school trip. You can read about our trip here: http://tollgate4a.edublogs.org

Do you have any questions for us?

How many playgrounds do you have?

We have 2 playgrounds, one for years 3&4 and one for years 5&6.  We will take some pictures for you - but today it’s raining, so we will wait for a nicer day!  We could share in a padlet?

Do you have a swimming pool?

No, but all year groups have 6 hours of lessons each year at the local pool.  It is about 15 minutes walk from us.  

How do your pupils get to school? Walk, cycle, bus, scooter.

Do you have to buy your own stationery? No our teachers provide it for us.  In year 6 we are allowed to bring our own if we want to.

Thank you