Principal's Welcome 

11th June 2021 (Friday)

Kia Ora Tātou

You may have seen in last weekend’s New Zealand Herald the lead story about possible changes to enrolment priorities for out-of-zone students for schools such as ours, that have enrolment schemes. Enrolment priorities are determined by the Ministry of Education and schools must follow them. Schools take out-of-zone enrolments if there is spare capacity or to balance student numbers. The current order of priority for out-of-zone students is: 

1. Students accepted into a special programme (not applicable to Glendowie College)
2. Siblings of current students
3. Siblings of former students
4. Children of former students
5. Children of board employees and board members
6. All other students 

For 2021, the college took approximately 30 out-of-zone students mainly across priorities 2 to 4. 

A Taskforce review in 2019 found that the current priority group order heavily influenced the chances of an out-of-zone student being offered a place at a school, meaning that for some students there were barriers for accessing education. The categories should be ‘transparent, fair and equitable’. As such the Ministry is seeking feedback on three options for prioritising out-of-zone students. 

The first option is retaining the status quo.

The second option is to increase the priority of children of board employees and board members to priority three, lower the priority of siblings of former students, and remove the children of former students as a priority group.

The third option is to retain current priority groups one and two, increase the priority of children of board members and employees to priority three, and hold an open ballot for all other applicants.

Each option has its strengths and weaknesses. Option 1 makes it difficult for children with no connection to the college to be accepted, maintaining current inequalities. Options 2 and 3 impacts on schools with strong connections to former students and could undermine the community feel of a school over time.

If you are interested in finding out more, I have included a link to the relevant website.

https://conversation.education.govt.nz/assets/ETAB-no-2/1250238-Appendix-2-Enrolment-priority-categories.pdf

If you want to have your say you can email your submissions to legislation.consultation@education.govt.nz or write to:

Education Consultation

Ministry of Education

PO Box 1666

Wellington 6140

New Zealand

Submissions close on 16 June 2021. I assume a decision will be made prior to out-of-zone enrolments closing at the beginning of September.

Ngā mihi nui 

Gordon Robertson

Principal

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