Parents win battle in war to retain kindy teaching system

It was a mixed result for parents of children at two North Shore kindies fighting to retain a century-old education system.

The Kindy Action Group has been battling to stop the Auckland Kindergarten Association switching from the traditional "sessional" to a "kindergarten day" model at Northcote and Northbridge Kindergartens.

Yesterday parents found out that Northcote will keep the status quo while Northbridge will take on the new day model.

Mothers Laurie Rands and Lisa Judge are two members of the Kindy Action Group.

Ms Rands, whose children attend Northcote, is happy the association finally listened to the community.

"We're really pleased with the outcome at Northcote, but we're still concerned for possible changes for other kindies in the future."

Parents voted in favour of the current system and this, combined with a successful public meeting, convinced the association to keep to the old system.

"It wasn't just a small group of mums taking up a lost cause, there were 200 parents in the room," said Ms Rands.

Ms Rands said enrolments had been unfrozen and an extra teacher hired for the afternoon session. Also, the association agreed its consultation process was flawed and promised to handle similar situations differently.

Mrs Judge, whose son attends Northbridge, said she was disappointed and frustrated by the outcome. With her daughter almost ready to start kindy Mrs Judge is looking into other schooling options.

She said the "day" system would mean a drop in roll numbers and less structure for children getting ready for primary school.

Association general manager Tanya Harvey said the reason for the proposed change was declining enrolments. She said they decided to keep the sessional model at Northcote because of community support.

However, the association would continue to monitor the kindergarten to make sure the sessional model was sustainable and enrolments did not drop.

She said the two kindergartens serviced very different communities, with a number of Northbridge children coming from homes where English was a second language. The day model would mean a smaller student to teacher ratio and greater flexibility for families.