Labour MP for Hauraki-Waikato Nanaia Mahuta is in Tauranga this week visiting schools to get a first-hand look into the New Zealand school system.

As the Labour's spokesperson for education, Nanaia says it is important for her to visit schools and find out what the most important issues in education are.

Labour MP for Hauraki/Waikato Nanaia Mahuta visited Merivale School on Monday.

'I will feed back this information to help form Labour's education policy,” says Nanaia.

'There are a number of great initiatives being delivered in schools to support learning outcomes for children and I am here to see what some of the exemplary examples include.”

Nanaia visited Merivale Primary School and Tauranga Intermediate, the largest intermediate school in New Zealand with a roll of 1200 pupils, on Monday.

'Schools are a really good indication of how communities are doing,” says Nanaia.

'There are huge differences between schools and what works well in one may not work in another. Merivale has only 120 students for example, but is achieving great results.”

Nanaia is critical of National's education policy saying the Government has put a lot of pressure on schools to implement national standards.

'They have set goals to increase performance with performance based pay. They set a strong target of 85 per cent achievement level of NCEA standards.”

'We want to give children the skills to get into higher training or tertiary training. This starts at home with parents who value education.

'It is important for children to have a firm grasp for reading, writing or math, but children have a range of talents and skills that might be more appropriate for teachers to tap into. If you applied that logic to my nephews you'd find they'd learn more about math on the sports field or in their wood-work classes or cooking.”

Nanaia believes that even children who are not meeting national standards but still achieving, need to have their achievements celebrated and acknowledged.

'The reality is that many Maori and Pacific children are starting school well behind their age level. This is due to low participation in early childhood education. Many Maori parents are young and the value of education is not important to them. We need models for learning where parents value education.”

'The love of learning starts in the home and support for young parents needs to be in our homes and in our society.”

Merivale Primary School principal Jan Tinetti says it was an awesome opportunity to be involved in setting policy, even though Labour is not able to implement anything right now.

'It was absolutely stunning to have her ask questions about educational priorities. It is always nice to have input into how government policy is made,” says Jan.

'Nanaia spoke to the children about how important education is and they were really impressed. Some of the kids performed for her and they said later they hoped it was really good as they thought she was a really nice lady.”