Problem hits many Wellington Central Schools
Sourced Content
John Gerritsen
Education Correspondent, Radio New Zealand
Wellington, Monday, March 13, 2017
A Wellington primary is using a caravan as a classroom, and other schools are teaching children in their libraries, as they try to cope with a student number’s boom.
Education Ministry figures show schools in the Rongotai and Central Wellington electorates had classroom space for 14,730 children at the middle of last year and were 97% full – one of the highest figures in the country.
Houghton Valley School Board of Trustees chairperson Sarah Graydon said that the school had 230 students and it was using its library as a classroom.
“We would rather have the library space as a library than as a classroom and it would be exacerbated towards the middle of the year when we do remedial work to two of the classrooms. This would then be at the school hall,” she said.
Classroom in ‘Dotty’
Ms Graydon said the school was using ‘Dotty,’ a parent’s caravan as a spill-over space for small group work, which was not essential, but certainly helpful.
The idea is to allow some space for teachers to do break-out things or have small groups with students,” she said.
Berhampore School principal Mark Potter said that his school had about 60 students over its 240 capacity.
He said that the school was running out of places to teach children.
“We are taking out a wall here, a wall there, lose the resource room, move the library, but there are only so many rabbits that we can pull out of that hat and hence we are running out of ideas for how to encompass this growth that we have got,” he said.
Inward Immigration up
Wellington High School Principal Nigel Hanton said that ‘Inward migration’ was boosting enrolments.
He said that the school was full, having reached a roll of 1260 students – about 350 more than it had five years ago, and he was not sure how the growth occurred.
“It is probably a demographic blip in the population. I guess that we are seeing some inward migration as the city centre becomes more apartment-living, families are moving from the suburbs to be close the centre of the city. That is also impacting our enrolments,” he said.
Mr Hanton said that the school had asked the Education Ministry about its property allocation and old figures indicated it could be under-resourced by as much as four or five classrooms.
Schools under pressure
He said the growth put pressure on the school.
“Every classroom is used for every period of every day, that includes all the specialist spaces like workshops and laboratories, computer suites. It also puts pressure on the infrastructure, there’s a lot more traffic around the school and that’s impacting just on the wellbeing aspect of students having enough space to relax and have their lunch.”
Onslow College is outside the high-pressure areas of Rongotai and Central Wellington but its principal, Peter Leggatt, said it was also feeling the effects of enrolment growth.
“We are not at absolute capacity now. All our rooms are used every spell, including spaces such as our hall which are having to be used as teaching spaces given the large number we have on our roll currently,” he said.
“We are as full as we can get without creating significant disruption to students’ learning by inability to have them in classrooms.”
Mr Leggatt said that the school had 1250 students and he expected the roll would stay high for the next five years as nearby primary schools were also very full.
“This is something in Central Wellington and is likely to continue for five years at least,” he said.
Ministry expects a decline
Some school principals and board members told Radio New Zealand that they had room for more students but Education Ministry Deputy Secretary (Sector Enablement and Support), Katrina Casey, acknowledged that some schools in the Rongotai and Wellington Central electorates had reached peak rolls, which were expected to drop over the next two to three years.
However, she said that some schools needed additional teaching space and the government had announced several building projects in Wellington since November 2015.
Ms Casey said some schools in the Wellington Central area had a high number of out-of-zone students or no enrolment schemes at all.
“We are working with some school boards across Rongotai and Wellington Central to manage out-of-zone enrolments or to implement or amend enrolment schemes. We have also provided some roll growth classrooms and school redevelopments,” she said.
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Overflowing schools take to vans- Houghton Valley Principal Raewn Watson with Board Chair Sarah Graydon (Picture supplied to Radio New Zealand)
Full Story courtesy: Radio New Zealand
