Auckland school invests in migrant education

By ANNE GIBSON

Auckland's immigrant and refugee influx has prompted Lynfield College to spend $900,000 building five classroom blocks.

Work has started on the prefabricated blocks on the college's tennis courts. The blocks will cater for about 500 children and adult students.

College principal Jim Sinclair said he hoped the project would be finished early next month.

Holes are being drilled through the courts for foundations to be put down for the new temporary classrooms.

The new intensive language learning centre would be fitted out in areas for the new students, who had come mainly from Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, Mr Sinclair said.

"We need smaller working areas for classes which can be as small as eight pupils," he said.

But in the long term, the college wanted to build a permanent block for the students, he said.

This was still in the planning stages, although construction on a $3 million science block was due to start soon.

Lynfield College catered for immigrant children and adults, refugee children and adults and international fee-paying students, giving it five distinct categories of students, Mr Sinclair said.

The influx of refugees had taken Lynfield somewhat by surprise.

"The building programme has come about because of the impact of these groups - their needs have caught up with us in the past two years in particular," he said.

"These students bring new issues and challenges, especially in terms of their level of English and our need to assess them.

"Quite a number of these students have been in refugee camps, such as in Pakistan, and they might have been there all their lives.

"Some have not been to school by the time they are teenagers."

Others had traumatic backgrounds from war-torn areas and had often lost family members.

One of the college's main challenges with the students was to gauge their abilities, particularly in English, as well as taking into account social and emotional problems.

The college employs bilingual workers as interpreters and, with so many Muslims, has incorporated an Islamic head-dress for the female pupils.

Lynfield's roll will reach 1650 this year, catering for students from Year Nine to Year 13.

Feature: Immigration