Waimokoia - the school that heals hard knocks

Oscar Paul has a mouthful of cuss words and a temper to match. He has sworn at teachers, kicked holes in the wall, toked marijuana and been banned from the local shopping mall. He has been suspended several times. On his bedroom wall are the obligatory posters of cars with number plates like ENTICE and 4BIDIN; there's an ashtray full of stubs on his bedside table and resting on his bean bag is Morgee the teddy bear.

"I made him gangsta," says the 13-year-old, grinning proudly at the red bandanna wrapped around Morgee's neck and the toy Uzi in its paw. The bear looks back, glassy eyes more scared than sinister.

When he wants to be, Oscar is smart, eloquent and kind. He dotes on his baby sister and offers to carry groceries for senior citizens - and no, he doesn't take off with the bags. But this child in homie's clothing was trying to grow up too fast. Oscar was on the fast track to Youth Court, he reckons, until chance stepped in. After hitting a teacher at Whangaparaoa Intermediate, he was marched off to Waimokoia School for three months, a last-stop primary school for the country's most difficult kids.

Waimokoia means "turbulent waters" in Maori, and, like its charges, the school has been through rough patches in recent years. In 2000, due to governance problems, the board resigned, along with most of the staff and the long-serving principal. A commissioner and executive director were appointed to take charge.

Now, 25 years after enrolling its first pupils, the school is back on track. Executive director Lorraine Guthrie says it is imperative all teachers are trained about how to deal with difficult kids in the classroom and New Zealanders need to "pull their heads out of the sand" about the reality of the state of our children.

"We are about five years behind the rest of the world when it comes to the way we deal with these kinds of children," she says. Too often children are lost as adults argue over which pool of money to use and where in the country to put them.

Reality is hard to ignore at the end of this polite cul-de-sac in comfortable Bucklands Beach. The 44 students in five classrooms are children in age only.

There's Thomas, 9, a freckle of a kid who has spent a rough few days after the recent suicide of a family member. His home has no running water, toilet or electricity. He was asked what he liked best about Waimokoia. "The lights," he said.

Henry came here after he punched his principal. He was suspended four times, then expelled. Henry is 10 and he cried for the whole first week he was here. He missed his family.

George doesn't miss the fights between his dad and brother. "They were at it all the time. They drove me and Mum out of the house," he scowls, then bounces back: "I get my new table-tennis bat tonight. It's a Stiga bat from Rebel Sport."

Katarina was taken in by her foster parents at 18 months. But with a family history of sexual abusers and a bi-polar birth mother, even that was too large a part of childhood to miss.

Brandon is a green-eyed kid from the Waikato. He is matter-of-fact about why he's here.

"I was naughty. I sweared and I kept on giving kids a hiding. They called me names like egghead, they were just nasty. They got me angry. I have to learn to control that."

He wasn't in control last year when he punched his teacher in the private parts because he was being "an egg".

"He treated my brother like crap. Mum growled me. It was dumb, I felt bad about it. I like it here. But my mum misses me. I don't think my dad does. I don't know why."

These are the children of Waimokoia: Sons and daughters of alcoholics, of nurses, builders, loving parents, frustrated caregivers, fathers in jail. Some have been brought up below the poverty line, some by millionaires. One pupil two years ago, was the son of a jet pilot and spent each term break in Switzerland.

Former Youth Court judge Mick Brown has seen thousands of kids just like them. "Oh yes, whanau and all this bloody ideology," he groans.

Brown has seen what becomes of children left to flounder in families that can't or won't support them. By the time they came before him, he says, it was often too late to change their behaviour. It's crucial to deal with these children early, he says, and sometimes the family is the worst place to do that.

"Often these problems are easy to deal with but it's bloody hard to get kids into the programmes.

"They're not going to come out as Rhodes scholars but given they can be a great cost to society later in life, it could be a huge investment."

So they come to Waimokoia after it is clear the normal school environment is not working. The school, CYF, the family and the Group Education Service are involved in the decision. About half of the students are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Oppositional Defiance Disorder. A couple have more serious mental health issues. Some are acting out after years of abandonment, others have fallen in with the wrong crowd and are just trying to grow up too fast. Some are so young they still need help dressing themselves.

Boys outnumber the girls five-fold - females tend to play up later in life. Waimokoia takes children aged 7 to 13 years. Usually, it's population is 50 per cent Pakeha and 50 per cent Maori and Pacific Islander.

All, say the teachers, are great kids.

"If you can't see behind this child's problem and see how wonderful the kid is, you shouldn't be here. They want to be part of the community. They don't want to be naughty, they want to fit in. They just don't know how," says senior teacher Martha.

The children know the boundaries and what will happen if they cross them. Katarina learned her lesson last weekend when she and a few others thought they'd try to run away. They spent Sunday cleaning the residential halls from top to bottom. It sucked, says Katarina.

But Waimokoia is also about letting them be children again. When they built a sandpit for the younger students, Martha was surprised to see the older ones showing an interest.

"They never had an opportunity to be children, they're so busy trying to cope in a big man's world. They lost their childhood.

"Some of them have not had their needs met at mainstream schools. A lot of them are isolated from nice things there as a form of punishment. And so they are so, so hungry for nice things."

They are also graded on their behaviour at the end of each period during the day. Five is best, and anything below a three is a 10-minute detention where they sit on the bench outside the staffroom for 10 minutes while the others play. There is no smacking, as much as the teachers may want to now and then.

The curriculum is that of any other primary school - these kids are not stupid. In some cases they have acted up at school to hide an above-average intelligence. The most popular subject is maths. For many of the children, life has been lived in survival mode. To them, numbers mean money, which means survival, explains Martha.

There's a strong practical and outdoors component, too. Go to the local council park and you'll find seats made by Waimokoia children over the years. They delight in creating things that last. With such transient, shifting lives, they embrace durability in any form.

The school is also looking at helping beyond the enrolled students and their families. Constantly improving their own skills - they have been working closely with experts at respected Cornell University - Guthrie and her team have adopted crisis intervention programmes and hope to train other teachers, caregivers and social workers - even though, says Guthrie, it may do her out of a job.

The school has the students for a year at most, focusing on behaviour so they can return to mainstream schooling and to their families.

They would love to have the flexibility to keep some children here longer. "Some of the older children have very thick walls around them, built up over years. It takes a long time to break them down. The big kids, they are better at hiding, at socialising and pretending. The babies, they come in and show you from day one why they're here," says Martha.

"We can't wave a magic wand and say they'll never get angry again. They will get angry again. They learn here what to do with it."

For some, a year is not enough. For others, it's too long.

And then there are those, such as Jordan, 10, for whom no amount of time may be enough.

Diagnosed with ADD, Jordan is a classic case study for the adult-child split. He knows the names of the country's juvenile offenders' homes but the day he was told his father had left town without saying goodbye, he cried and cried.

Faith, his caregiver for the past year, remembers the day this rangy, blonde boy turned up at her ranchslider. Knee-high to a gnat, he carried a plastic guitar, a stuffed-toy dog named Carlos and a bag of clothes he would soon outgrow. And a giant attitude.

"I had just put the washing down on the ground. He looked at it and said, 'God, this house is messy. Who would want to live here?' And that was it. 'Hello, Jordan - nice to meet you too'," says Faith.

Everyone who has met Jordan says he's the most resilient child they have seen. What he has had to put up with in his life is unimaginable, says staff member Lyn, but he always bounces back. He is always on the go. Jordan says: "I just can't slow down. I don't know why."

Sometimes he talks so fast, he is literally buzzing. Sometimes it's a happy energy but often he gets rid of it by punching, biting, kicking in walls, terrorising the pets and climbing out windows on Saturday nights to bike home to his mother. Jordan has been shunted from one foster home to another. Even Waimokoia has not had any immediate effect on him, says Faith's husband Clive.

"I feel he actually regressed. He's fallen back to his old tricks. When he's good, he'll own your heart. When he's bad, you just want to lock him up. Jordan feels that and it frustrates him more but I don't know that Jordan has it in himself to change yet. I want to help him get a life. But I wonder if, for him, there's no hope." Perhaps, he says, he has been institutionalised too often.

Lyn is slightly more optimistic: "He probably was a bit when we got him but we were a last resort for Jordan. CYF had nowhere to put him, no one who could manage him. With many, their experience here comes back later in life."

There is an ongoing tension with CYF workers, who believe children should be placed with a family member, any family member, rather than kept in an institution.

That irks many at the coalface.

Says Lyn: "There is a belief that you shouldn't take children out of their families and that's valid. But that's not always possible. There's always the intention of getting them back. And some of the children don't have families to go back to."

Most of the children stay for the term and the staff try to give the school a family feel. The dormitories are sparse and smell like a hospital ward. Security cameras in the corridors keep an eye on the children for their own safety and for the teachers to monitor their behaviour. The children have their own bedroom, a thin vinyl mattress on a built-in base and a set of drawers the only furnishings. Some have posters on the walls.

The minimalist approach to decoration is intentional - too often, the children just pull everything down during a tantrum. But it's also due to funds. Guthrie says she would love to do them up but the money just isn't there.

The warmth comes in the relationships. Children and staff are open and honest with each other. They are encouraged to talk about their problems in as much detail as they feel comfortable. There is no stigma attached to being at Waimokoia.

Of course, when a child does have a supportive family, the school does all it can to get them back there.

Oscar Paul is a case in point. After 3 1/2 months at Waimokoia, he has changed for the better, says his dad, Dennis, who lived near Oscar's mother and stepfather. "When I got him, he was right into rebelling, kicking holes in the door, yelling. He's tried to grow up too early.

"But look at his teddy bear. He's really just a kid."

Oscar, though only just a teenager, understands too. "I was trying to fit in with the cool group. I just couldn't really control my anger. I wish I never did those things."

Waimokoia School has never claimed it creates angels. In many cases, it's a success story if a child makes it to his 20s without a record.

Lyn: "It's a very structured environment. When they get out, sometimes that structure and predictability is gone and that frightens them.

"Sometimes they relapse. Some of them don't ever get it together, some of them do. But at least they're getting a chance."