Highlights:
- Choice of school and programme length
- Subject choice tailored by the school to each student’s education
- School orientation on arrival
- Access to New Zealand Educational Tours at an additional cost
- Home-stay with a NZ family approved by the high school
- Arrival and pre-departure AFS orientation camps
Description: Global Choice is a programme for fee-paying international students. This programme offers students the opportunity to immerse themselves in NZ culture, experience a New Zealand public high school and family life. The student can choose the area of NZ they wish to be hosted in, and the high school they want to attend. Students on the NH year programme will join their school halfway through the academic year, and stay in New Zealand until halfway through the following academic year. Students will be in New Zealand over the summer school holidays. There may be opportunities to explore the country with an organised tour during the holidays. This will be at the student’s expense. The role of AFS in Global Choice is as an agent. AFS assists with school selection in New Zealand, enrollments, orientations and support. NZ public high schools may accept international students up to 19 years at the completion of their programme, but the students must understand that they need to engage with high school and follow the school rules. If you would like to enrol an older participant, please contact us to discuss the options. New Zealand schools have extensive experience hosting international students. National exams are taken from mid November and classes finish early November. Many schools provide activity programmes for international students who are not sitting exams.
Additional information about housing: Global Choice students are placed with paid host families, known as ‘home-stay families’. The home-stay family is chosen carefully by the school and paid a fixed weekly fee for the accommodation and meals they provide to the student. Kiwi homes can be town houses or apartments, large family homes on suburban streets, or small, century old wooden houses on farms. It all depends on what community your host family belongs to, and what a day in the life of that family looks like! Even though there are differences in housing types, there are some shared commonalities: 1. Almost all Kiwi homes have pets. If you live in a rural area your host family may have cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and horses as well – not inside, but close to the family home. This means that it is challenging to accommodate participants with allergies, and vital that all allergies are disclosed during the application process. 2. Not all Kiwi homes have air conditioning or central heating. This means that in summer houses may be hot, and in winter they could be cold. Kiwis are hardy people, so when its cold they just put on an extra sweater, and when it’s hot they wear shorts and go barefoot. Be ready for different attitudes towards temperatures! 3. Like most other Western countries, household compositions in New Zealand are varied and culturally diverse. New Zealand is very lucky to have people from many different countries in its communities, so this means our host families are often from Europe, Asia, South America and several Pacific Islands. Being Kiwi therefore means being all kinds of cultures and ways of living, and that comes with different ways of eating, different religious beliefs and different household interests. Participants will need to embrace this diversity!
- English A1 All students will be required to take English classes at school. For those who have only basic English, ‘English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)’ classes may be available.