Ministry planning for mega schools

WELLINGTON: The Education Ministry has revealed it is planning for mega schools of up to 4500 pupils.

Its modelling indicated there could be secondary schools that size in highgrowth areas by 2043, the ministry said.

‘‘In these areas our modelling indicates school sizes by 2043 may approach 10001200 student places for a primary school, 11001200 student places for an intermediate school and 35004500 student places for a secondary school,’’ it said.

Auckland’s Mount Albert Grammar School principal Patrick Drumm said his school of 3200 pupils would reach those figures by the end of the decade.

‘‘The master planning we’re doing here at Mount Albert

Grammar is definitely for 4000,’’ he said.

‘‘We’re growing at a 150 a year, so we’re going to hit those upper limits well ahead of 2043.’’

He estimated the school could reach 4000 within four or five years and said the school had already talked to ministry planners about growing to 4500 pupils.

Mr Drumm said with good planning the school could personalise pupils’ learning and ensure they had good relationships with their teachers and with one another, but it needed to reconsider its systems as it grew further.

‘‘We’ve been looking around the world to try and find examples of big schools and how they function and what are the characteristics of them, rather than just walk blindly towards that number,’’ Mr Drumm said.

‘‘The question for me is do you just upscale another 30% until you get to 4000 in terms of those practices or is there a need to step back and gather expert advice around that, around how you may try to run a school at 4000?’’

Auckland’s Rangitoto College is the only other school in New Zealand with more than 3000 pupils and the biggest in the country with 3250.

Principal Patrick Gale said he did not want the school to get any bigger and the ministry would have to plan a school of 4000 very carefully.

‘‘It’s an interesting concept and I’m not sure how much research has gone into this.

‘‘I’m aware that we are the largest school on a single site at least in Australasia and there are some schools in the [United] States that may be bigger than us, but it’s not something that’s being pushed as a model,’’Mr Gale said.

‘‘I understand the economic reasoning behind it from the ministry’s point of view, but I think there’s ways of planning quite carefully to ensure schools are not massive.’’

The ministry might want a big school to divide into junior and senior sections, Mr Gale said.

Big schools needed clear systems for pastoral care, and could provide a lot of curriculum choices for pupils, he said.

Burnside High School principal Phil Holstein said the Christchurch school was built in the 1970s as New Zealand’s first supersized school and now had 2500 pupils.

He said big schools had to be organised in a way that ensured pupils were not lost in the crowd and he urged caution over supersized schools.

‘‘I’d probably suggest as we did with Burnside that it’s a trial first — see how it goes.

‘‘I wouldn’t be allowing all schools to do it at the same time.’’

As at March, the top three school rolls in Otago and Southland were James Hargest College (Invercargill) at 1777, Mount Aspiring College (Wanaka) at 1132 and Taieri College (Mosgiel) at 1128.

Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Jack Boyle said the ministry needed to decide if schools of 4500 were a good idea.

‘‘There’s a whole lot of work that needs to go in the first instance to establish whether or not we should have schools of that size and, if we do, what sorts of things we need to have in place to make sure the learning experience for young people is what we want it to be.’’ — RNZ

❛ I understand the economic reasoning behind it from the ministry’s point of view, but I think there’s ways of planning quite carefully to ensure

schools are not massive