Lower Hutt area New Zealand

[zoej]

Hi
My DH has just had a job interview for a job based in Lower Hutt near Wellington.

Can anyone give some advice on the area, schools, playgroups, shops, houses to rent, local facilities etc. We are also interested in other local areas like featherston, upper Hutt, Porirua area etc and what the trvel times are in rush hour back to Lower Hutt.

zoe

lived there all my life never seen a katipo spider and lifted up many tons of driftwood and detritus in the gardens...
But you may well see a fair bit of the weta
Fair to say I don't miss those buggers.
Estate agents will be fairly frank with you about nice areas so worth emailing or ringing some wgtn agents and asking for some guidance on currents yes and no's

going back to the advice of choosing the best primary school and working from there - are they league tables or such like to use as guidence?

also is there any tables or reports (like ofsted) for pre-schools?

my friend in Upper Hutt has just emailed me. She has registered on mn so that she can give you information and is waiting for confirmation of her registration so she can post or CAT you.

zoe, schools in NZ are checked by a government agency called ERO (Education Review Office) similar to OFSTED. Try here

How important is this Decile value - I guess if you are being a snob! ? then you want a value of 10!! or as close to it?

What else do parents judge the school on - is there any other quantative tables or values that primary schools get judged on?

so far my top 3 areas I have found look like eastbourne, normandale and khandallah. Any other nice areas and schools that anyone knows of? My soon is currently at a small village school 70 pupils.

here's a little village school close to town.

Deciles just say how rich the people living in the school zone are - which becomes self perpetuating as the 10s all have higher house prices, so stay 10s.

My teacher friends can all give examples of a decile 3 school that is really good and a decile 10 school that whilst not bad as such, isn't worth paying an extra $50K for your home for.

For the record ds's school will be a 6.

Ah, so really not linked in anyway to performance!

Are there any performance values? How do you judge a school? At the moment there are so many schools in the very broad area we are looking at it is difficault to be able to know where to start.

Hi zoe, my friend tried to post and it didn't work, so she has emailed my this info which I am copying and pasting below:

Hi,
My friend anorak told me about you thinking about moving to Lower Hutt. I lived in London for approx 6 yrs.

My husband works in Petone & me in town. We have live in Upper Hutt for 2 & 1/2 yrs. Traffic in Wellington is a breeze in comparison to England?s traffic problems. Rush hour from Upper Hutt to Lower Hutt is really good. However from Petone to Wellington in rush hour traffic is really slow. Sometimes you do stop & start. It takes us 1/2 an hr from Upper Hutt to Petone, Lower Hutt & then for me to get to Wellington from Petone via the train takes me approx 15 mins. Most of Wellingtonians travel via trains, buss's, car or motorbikes. It takes approx 20 mins in non rush hr traffic from Upper Hutt to the mall in Lower Hutt via car. From Upper Hut to Wellington via train takes approx 1 hr.

Accommodation - I'd recommend a place where the main living area, at least, is facing the sun. This will help to keep the house warm during the day. Not all places have insulation. Insulating a house is a bit different here to England. Try to find something with pink bates, if possible. (Not all housing here is insulated) As our winters do get cold. Summer is really nice.

Kitchen's - Are like Kitchen's in England. You can get small, medium or large kitchens.

Schools - Not sure about Lower Hutt. But in Upper Hutt we have a few good state schools. As well as private schools if you want to send your children there.

Activities - The River that runs through Upper & Lower Hutt is safe to swim in & lots of people take advantage of it during the summer. Or you can choose to swim in the public pools. Both Upper & Lower Hutt have them. The Hutt has many lovely bush walks. We are a pretty active bunch of people.

Parks - Over the summer periods the Hutt Council allows some special events. That has cheap entry fees. Such as concerts, Medieval Javelin & the Summer Carnivals.

Weather - Wellington can get strong southerlies (mostly in winter). Hence why Wellington is called Windy Wellington. But the further up the motorway you go the wind changes. Upper Hutt attracts mostly northerly winds. So there not so strong!

Not sure how much I can tell you. But if you have any more questions just ask & I will try to answer them.

In addition, I copied and pasted this from a conversation I had with my friend this morning on msn:

my neighbour still has 1 teenager at school. she seems to enjoy it. she is her final year & wants to go onto uni to do drama. we have state shools for all years. but college you have a choice between state or private up here. if you choose private. i think they can be day students.but not sure. i can find out. the private schools would be approx 5 min drive from where i live
I think she should no about the accommodation as well. our insulation & heating over hear is differant to England. insulation & heating is so differant.
tell her to try her best to make sure what she get's in accommodation faces the sun. this will help to keep the place warm during winter
try to get a place that has pink bate or polyurathan insulation. if buying then they can pay for this to put in the house cellings & under the floors. if she has wooden floors.
heating: you have a selection. fire place. wood or gas burner's or she can go for heatpumps. otherwise she will need to use fan heaters or a collum heater. heatpumps, fan heater's or collumn heaters are electrically run. out of the 3 heatpumps are suppose to be the cheapests.
Matt and I are investigating the woodburner & heatpump option at the moment. we have a cheap gas heater. but our house has a very good venterlation system called a DVS. this stops condesation on our windows. it saves me having to go around the house each morning drying the window's in order to stop the window frames from rooting slowly
but the DVS doesn't like gas.... hence why we have to find something differant to use. I love the DVS to much to have it break down on us. the dvs is like a dehumidifer. but on a lager scale. i cant remember if you have dehumidifers over there. I don't think i ever took note of them. any way brilliant to have if you got asmatic kids. it surculats the air. buy fan's in the celling.
it drives the warm are from that is lost in the roof into the house & then curculates it. they say you loose approx 60% of your heating through your roof. this way it keeps the air in your house curculating & dry. by circulating the air it helps with the dust mits etc. it's great with drying wet washing as well. As it sucks the moisture out of the cloths you are trying to dry inside.

Very few houses/flats have DVS or HRT?s (HRT is another brand for DVS. HRT will work with gas) here in Wellington. But if I were buying a house again. One of my

Condition?s of the purchase would that it could have a DVS or HRT installed. That is how highly I rate it. If you have DVS I find you have water your house plants more

regularly though. I?m a big advocate on the DVS or HRT. I haven?t added this to my attachement though. It up to you if you want to add it or not.

apologies if we have repeated ourselves anywhere here, just let me know if there is anything particular you want to ask as my friend is happy to help.

Thanks Anorak,

The heating info is really useful. I had read the average winter temp is around 12 - but I guess there is a nasty wind chill on top of this too.

If you friend would like to email me direct my address is zjuniper at hotmail.co.uk

I have a load more questions regarding all sorts - rate bills to shopping and all sorts of funny basic type questions!

thanks zoe