NEV school gets itself in the zone
AFTER decades of roll decline, North East Valley Normal School has recorded a 152% increase in pupil numbers during the past eight years, prompting its board of trustees to consider an enrolment zone.
Until 2008, the school’s roll had been steadily declining as an increasing number of properties in the valley were taken over as tertiary student flats.
But principal John McKenzie said that since then, the roll had increased from 107 pupils in 2011 to about 270 this year.
‘‘The school has had to reclaim space for classroom use — nearly a classroom per year for the last three or four years.’’
He was delighted with the growth and was excited to see empty classrooms filling up again, but he said the board wanted to limit the roll to about 300 pupils.
That meant the school could maintain its ‘‘personalised approach to teaching’’, Mr McKenzie said.
There were a number of reasons for the 152% growth.
‘‘One is that the school used to be bypassed.
‘‘Parents would send their children to George Street Normal and Opoho Schools, and I don’t think they realised they had a pretty good school under their nose.
‘‘We were quite antinational standards at our school, but I think they did us quite a favour because they showed what highquality achievement was going on here.’’
He said the results caused a major turnaround in parents’ perceptions of the school.
‘‘The ministry’s figures show that only 15% of children who are within our catchment area go outside our area for school. It would have been a lot larger 10 years ago.’’
He said the school’s community garden and families at the school had been integral to the rejuvenation of neighbourliness in the community.
‘‘People have invested themselves in the community because there’s a sense of belonging.
‘‘And because of the increased sense of community and connectedness in the valley, the turnover rate of families has reduced.’’
He said the University of Otago had also increased the amount of hall of residence accommodation for students, meaning fewer were flatting in the valley and more of the housing was being occupied by families.
‘‘That’s had a big effect.’’ Mr McKenzie said the school was still in the early stages of working with the Ministry of Education to establish an enrolment zone.
Community consultation on the zone would begin in the coming months and the zone could come into effect as early as next year, he said.