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EIT Graduate Loves Teaching In Hawke’s Bay

May 28, 2014
Dan Ball

Dan Ball has scored a great teaching job and a spot with the Napier City Rovers League squad

Dan Ball loves primary school teaching, a career he’s spring boarded off degree study at EIT.

A talented soccer and futsal player, the former Taradale High School student always wanted to do something in sport.

Dan’s father Evan Ball encouraged him to study for a Bachelor of Recreation and Sport at EIT rather than leave the region for study.  That allowed Dan to keep his student loan down and to pursue high-level sport playing right back or right midfield for Hawke’s Bay United.

Awarded a Sport Hawke’s Bay and EIT Sports Scholarship in two successive years, he lived at home for some of the time he was undertaking degree studies which also helped offset his outgoings.

After graduating, he topped up his Bachelor of Sport and Recreation with a one-year Graduate  Diploma in Teaching (Secondary) at Massey University, specialising in physical education and health, senior physical education and health education.

Returning to Hawke’s Bay at the end of 2011, he relieved at Tamatea Intermediate School, Porritt School and Taradale High School but missed out on a permanent secondary teaching position.  Because he enjoyed his involvement with a younger age group, he decided to study extramurally for the Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Primary).

Now he is delighted to be “teaching everything – maths, science and English – to an awesome class of six to seven-year-olds” at Greenmeadows Primary School.

“I feel I have struck an amazing school,” he says. “I feel very lucky to be part of that school.”

With tertiary studies behind him, the 23-year-old is also pleased to be immersing himself in serious sport.  He represented New Zealand playing for the Futsal Whites in Tahiti and he recently signed a contract to play for the Napier City Rovers Central League side.

When he sat his last degree exam at EIT, Dan promised himself “never again”, but he has no regrets about extending his learning pathway – the Bachelor of Recreation and Sport was the foundation for graduate study and his career.

“Now I have a permanent position with five years of study under my belt.    Further study was definitely the right thing to do – my students deserve the best teacher they can get.”