Take part in our unique conference extra!
So you’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand – and now you are actually coming! Of course while you’re here you’ll want to explore more than just our conference venue – so we’ve arranged a very special package of “learning adventures” to help you do just that.
PS: It’s open to our Kiwi delegates too!
What are “learning adventures”?
Learning adventures are a very special way of discovering the real New Zealand, a country full of intriguing and different experiences.
To begin with, it is an extraordinarily beautiful country with a landscape rich in contrasts. In few parts of the world can you find packed into so small a space such a constantly changing vista of great mountains, beautiful lakes and rivers, rolling plains, lush sub-tropical forests, spectacular thermal areas and miles of sandy beaches. One of the last places in the world to have human habitation, it has evolved a unique bird life from the cheeky comic kea to the shy kiwi adopted as the nation’s symbol, and is home too to the tuatara, found only in New Zealand, the sole survivor of an ancient group of reptiles that roamed the earth at the same time as dinosaurs.
New Zealand is also known by its first name, Aotearoa, “the land of the long white cloud”, which is how it appeared from the sea to the Maori, its first inhabitants, who came here in their great canoes or “waka” in marvellous feats of navigation across thousands of miles of empty ocean. Again unique to this country, Maori culture is today a significant influence on how life is lived throughout New Zealand, helping to shape language, customs, laws and traditions for us all.
New Zealand cities in the 21st century offer a sophisticated urban life-style reflected in a thriving arts culture and a wide variety of dining and entertainment experiences to suit all comers. Yet nowhere are you very far from the green heart of the country. New Zealanders feel a very strong bond with this land of theirs, and, still close to their pioneering forebears, are independent-minded and innovative in their responses to it. It is no coincidence that New Zealanders split the atom, flew a plane before the Wright brothers, climbed Mt Everest before anyone else, invented the jetboat and the bungy-jump - and were the first country in the world to give women the vote!
How will it work?
Two special elements!
Working with our tourist industry and with our own team of gifted programme specialists, we will develop firstly a comprehensive resource kit packed with high-interest information, exciting differentiated lesson material for gifted learners of various ages, and website links for further research. (We are currently seeking sponsorship to ensure this kit can be made available to every delegate as part of their conference package).
Secondly, specially arranged post-conference tour packages will provide an opportunity for delegates to visit featured places and events in person and have their own “learning adventures”, creating great real stories to take back home and helping them make later lessons using the resource kit vividly real.
Keep watching this page for more details!