School out of space
Zoning to help out Tokomaru
An enrolment zone is expected to help Tokomaru School deal with a booming roll.
The Manawatu¯ school’s roll has exploded so much during the past two years, that the school is looking at bringing in zoning to avoid overcrowding.
Principal Sonia Mudgway, who is often required to step into teaching, said the school’s roll had grown rapidly.
It started with 71 pupils in 2016 and now has 123.
In 2016, the school had three classrooms but is now up to five, having moved the library into the old dental clinic and turned the library into a classroom.
An empty and damaged classroom had to have the floor fixed and heating installed during the third term of 2016 so it could be used for pupils.
Mudgway said the construction of subdivisions and lifestyle blocks in Tokomaru meant more children were coming to the school.
Some of the children live in Shannon or Levin and have parents who work in Palmerston North and drop their kids off on the way to work.
‘‘We’ve probably got roughly about 30 per cent [who] live outside our natural catchment area. That’s because we don’t have a zone. [The zone] will help manage the roll.’’
Mudgway said the Ministry of Education had told the school to put zoning in place, and then it should be able to ask for an extra classroom.
‘‘For us it’s about making sure local kids can go to their local school and they should be able to. We want kids who live in Toko to be able to come to us and not be in a situation where they have to be squashed.’’
They don’t have enough lunch tables to cater for all the children and even the large playground is busy at interval and lunchtime, Mudgway said.
For assemblies, which used to be in the library, the school now has to use the underpass to get to Tokomaru Public Hall on the other side of State Highway 57.
Every available space in the school is used, Mudgway said. Even part of the caretaker’s room is used as a resource room.
Mudgway said people believed Tokomaru was a small rural school but that was not the case.
‘‘It’s a good problem to have, but a problem all the same.’’
This year the school enrolled 27 children, double what Mudgway expected. It will still take siblings of current students.
Linton Camp School, Linton Country School, O¯ piki School, Turitea School and Aokautere School are in the Fitzherbert cluster, along with Tokomaru.
Shannon School is also nearby.
The proposed zone extends from the intersection of Humes and Tane roads, to Tokomaru East Road, to Kaihinau Road, to O¯ piki Road, Ashlea Road and back to the start.
Formal submissions about the zoning proposal close at the end of the month.
It’s about making sure local kids can go to their local school . . . We want kids who live in Toko to be able to come to us. Sonia Mudgway, Tokomaru School principal