Conductive Education (NZFCE) is a national body that was set up to unite the groups providing Conductive Education and to advocate for those receiving their services. NZFCE is fortunate to have All Black Assistant Coach, Wayne Smith as its patron. The long term vision for NZFCE is to see Conductive Education available across all age groups in each of the main centres throughout N.Z. for people with motor disorders

Christchurch is the closest of all NZ centres to achieving this aim. Conductive Education is now available in Christchurch as part of the education system at pre-school, primary school and secondary school levels in purpose built facilities based in state schools...

Children with motor disorders can be enrolled in the Early Intervention unit, catering for children up to age six and which is sited on the grounds of Addington Primary School. This facility has its own independent management team, is governed by trustees (mainly parents) and is staffed by a Conductor, an Early Intervention Teacher and a number of support staff. The roll of this modern, well resourced facility varies between 12 and 15.
About 50% of the children who pass through this facility are prepared for enrolment at their local primary school and unit staff assist in this transition. The other 50%, mainly the more profoundly disabled, progress at age five or six to the Addington Primary School unit,

The majority of the children in the Addington primary school facility are ORRS funded. This is the Ongoing Reviewable Resourcing Scheme which provides the extra funding that schools require to be able to meet the needs of children with disabilities. The roll in the Addington unit varies at any given time between 18 and 22.

The Addington unit is governed by the Board of Trustees of the mainstream school supported by a Management Committee made up of parents and staff. The school employs two conductors, three teachers, a Speech Language Therapist who specialises in developing communication skills and up to twenty para-professionals (teacher aides) many of whom work part time. Several of the children for whom mainstreaming is appropriate spent most of their day in mainstream classes, only returning to the unit each day for their physical programme. One of the three teachers has the sole responsibility to support the children who are mainstreamed and to adapt their individual programmes accordingly. The other two teachers each have responsibility for one of the two groups of children that spend most of their day in the unit. These groups are organised according to age and physical needs.

Having the Early Intervention unit and the primary school unit on the same site, although each is self managing, allows for co-operation between the two for resource sharing and staff peer support. Also by the time the pre-school children are ready to move on to the primary school unit they feel relaxed and familiar in the school environment.

On reaching secondary school age the children are then able to progress through to the secondary school Conductive Education unit that is a new purpose built facility established at Cashmere High School. Cashmere is the secondary school that most Addington School pupils progress to. This means that Conductive Education children are able to renew friendships they established with able bodied children while at Addington.

The secondary school unit operates with a roll that averages around twenty and has a similar ratio of staff and management structure to the Addington school unit. Two conductors lead the programme, along with a senior teacher and a speech language therapist and many para-professionals. A lot of work is done to develop communication skills using modern technology.

These facilities provide a seamless Conductive Education programme through all age groups through to age twenty one. Each of the school units receive regular visits from Advisors for the Deaf and the Visually Impaired who provide extra support for those children for whom it is relevant. The aim now for Christchurch is the creation of a Conductive Education unit for adults.

Conductive Education teaches people with motor disorders to co-ordinate their movements and achieve greater independence in their everyday lives. There are a lot of advantages in having facilities of this sort based in schools. While originally developed in Hungary, Conductive Education in schools is adapted to NZ conditions and allows for the delivery of the NZ curriculum in a “Conductive Education environment.” Learning is not structured around specific subjects at specific times, rather it is holistic with individuals taught, for example to speak, communicate, read, draw, write, and sing etc throughout the day.

Having such facilities based in mainstream schools enables these children to access a programme specifically developed to meet their particular needs while still accessing the educational curriculum and being able to interact sociably with able bodied children. This is also of great benefit to the able bodied children in the school who develop empathy and understanding of the issues that face people with profound disabilities, develop life long friendships with them and learn to accept all people irrespective of their differences.

Similar pre-school and primary school units provide Conductive Education in Hamilton, sited at Woodstock School and Wellington at Naenae School. It is an objective of NZFCE to support these centres to get secondary school units established there as well as units catering for all age groups in other major centres.

Conductive Education is provided in Invercargill at a centre run by a Trust that employs two conductors and caters for pre-school children, many of whom travel long kilometres daily from the wider Southland area to be able to access the programme. Children of primary school age are also catered for outside school hours.

Focus 2000 in Auckland also provides extensive Conductive Education courses, employs seven conductors and runs courses that attract children not only from the Auckland area but from many parts of the upper North Island and even from as far away as Australia.

Auckland is fortunate to also have the only centre in NZ. that caters for adults at a facility sited in Henderson. Excellent results are being also achieved here with people who have acquired motors disorders later in life through, for example, strokes, head injuries and Parkinson’s disease.