Frequently Asked Questions

Our national office and some of our branches are charitable trusts. Schools pay a small membership fee but the cost of our service is heavily subsidised through substantial support from grants, sponsors and donors. We also rely heavily on volunteers to help deliver our service in the regions. Our national partner is the Wright Family Foundation, a charitable trust committed to the growth and development of all New Zealanders through education in various forms.

New Zealand schools have limited funds and a lot of freedom on how to use those funds. For many years science investment at school level has not been a priority. The House of Science model ensures schools have access to a large range of quality, well maintained resources. We are encouraging the government to look for ways this can be directly funded to ensure all schools can access this great service and no student misses out. The investment is minimal and the rewards far reaching and long lasting. It’s a no-brainer as far as we’re concerned… In the meantime, we will continue to deliver kits to regions where the community are supporting us financially and through volunteer labour.

Our regional branches all rely heavily on sponsorship, donations, grants and volunteers to ensure the service we provide is cost effective for schools. If you or someone you know has time available to help deliver, collect or maintain resource kits we would love to hear from you! We are always on the look-out for new financial partners, from sponsoring a resource kit in a branch through to partnering at a national scale, we would love to chat! Please click here to get in touch.

The cost to schools varies slightly from branch to branch. There are four different membership levels depending on the school’s needs: one, two, three or four resource kits delivered each fortnight during the school year. That’s 20 to 80 kits a year! Over 90% of the actual cost of the service is subsidised by grants, sponsors and donors. Please contact your local House of Science branch for a price list.

We’re unable to service schools outside our current branch areas sorry. Our branches service a set region with up to 100 schools. Please contact our national office if you’re not sure whether you’re in an area that is covered by one of our existing branches.

Establishing a new branch requires seed funding to employ a (part time) branch manager, purchase a starting set of resource kits, secure a venue and lease vehicles. Please contact the business development manager if you are interested in finding out more.

Each House of Science branch services a set area of approximately 100 schools. Schools in this region join through an annual membership subscription. The cost of this is approximately 10% of the actual cost of delivering the service, it is heavily subsidised through sponsorship, grants and donations. There are four subscription tiers, schools can choose to access one, two, three or four resource kits a fortnight. Kits are booked online via our website and delivered to the school. The House of Science team distribute and maintain the kits.

If you have a House of Science branch in your area and belong to a home school group then yes, the group can become a House of Science member ‘school’. Please contact your local House of Science branch for more details.

The library concept we use means all resources are shared between a large number of schools. This means the equipment is not gathering dust on a resource room shelf. We choose non-disposable plastic containers as they are robust and light. Our containers are recycled in-house where practical and taken to a recycling centre at the end of their useful life.

All House of Science member schools receive ongoing PLD as part of their annual subscription. We also have a growing team of Science PLD facilitators that deliver regionally-allocated PLD at some of our member schools. To find out more please contact our PLD manager.