-
New Zealand 2009
Report of my Gap Year at Dilworth School, New Zealand
Edward Cooper
The year in New Zealand has been the best year of my life so far. The great experiences and memories will live with me forever. Living away from home for the whole year was an awesome but scary experience. The fact that I had to do my own washing and ironing was a difficult experience to handle but it became routine after a few weeks. Having no-one to tell you what to do and when to do it was a great feeling. Now we move onto the school. Dilworth is a school where all the students are given 100% scholarships. This is because the boys are all from broken homes which means that they only have one parent, no parents or can’t afford to go a private school. This was awesome because it meant that the students appreciated everything that they were given and looked on any gift given to them as if it were priceless. The students were really welcoming and easy to get along with. My role was as an Assistant Teacher in the PE Department, this involved helping out with all the duties in the department and twice a week I was left in sole charge of a class. This gave me an insight into becoming a teacher, which I am now thinking is a definite career possibility. I also coached the 1st XI hockey team and the 3rd XI cricket, which had an unbeaten season! This was a new experience as I had never coached teams of this caliber before. There were 11 Gap tutors in total at Dilworth, everyone came from different parts of the UK and Northern Ireland and luckily we all got on very well right from the start of the year.
During the school holidays I was able to travel and explore New Zealand. This gave me the best of both worlds. My first travelling experience was around the South Island of New Zealand. This I did by Kiwi Experience. This is a bus service which lets you get on and off wherever you want and stay in that particular place for as many days as you want. I started in Christchurch then went to Kiakora, Nelson, Franz Joseph, Wanaka and finally Queenstown. Along the way I took part in fishing, a glacier hike, 3 bungee jumps, luge, skiing and many other exciting activities which I had never done before. My second travelling experience was in December when I went to Australia for 6 weeks. Here it was more relaxed and there was a lot more lying on beaches and surfing which I really enjoyed. I spent two weeks over the Christmas and New Year period in Sydney. Surfing every day on the famous Australian beaches and I also went to see the great New Year fireworks of Sydney. They were incredible. After Sydney I travelled by bus all the way up the East Coast to Cairns and then onto Surfers Paradise. By then I had become a beach bum and totally hooked on surfing. After that I visited Fraser Island and the Whitsundays which were both a highlight of the Australia trip. However, the main highlight was snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef which has been an ambition of mine since I was very young. It was amazing seeing all kinds and colours of fish and the beautiful coral up close. Then it was back to New Zealand and the first term of the academic year.
Finally with 6 weeks left of my year I thought I would road trip around the North Island of New Zealand. I set off with 5 of the other Gap Tutors and we had great fun visiting all the main towns in the North Island, Roterua, Taupo, Hamilton and Wellington.
I would like to thank the RGSPA Sponsorship Sub-Committee for the cheque for £200 towards my Gap year. I had an awesome time and that funding helped me have a great time. Thanks again and hopefully more people will be able to have a great year away.
Sponsorship & Grants ›› New Zealand 2009