Schools in Auckland’smost popular zones are bursting at the seams amid concerns about how they’llcope with the unrelenting growth.
Rolls at 40Auckland schools currently exceed capacity, and the Ministry of Education saysthe city’s school age population is expected to grow by at least another 21 percent in coming years.
Home buyerslooking to purchase in desirable areas face the prospect of their local schoolzone shrinking or changing as rolls exceed their peak.
In the NorthShore suburb of Campbells Bay where the average property value is $1.8 million,the local school is at 113 per cent capacity.
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Principal JohnMcGowan says recent growth has been “rampant”. The roll has increased by around100 students a year for the past few years, reaching over 1000 in 2017.
On currentinformation Campbells Bay School is expecting its numbers to stabilise in 2018,“but we won’t know till midway through next year whether that’s a trend or anaberration”, McGowan says.
Schools are legallyrequired to enrol every eligible child within their zone, and with help fromthe Ministry of Education’s property division Campbells Bay has been able toprovide enough classroom space to cope with the influx. It is lucky in that ithas large grounds, but it would prefer not to grow too much bigger, theprincipal says.
Meanwhile theschool has recently hired a private investigator to check the veracity ofenrolments, as demand for its sought-after zone intensifies.
“We’ve done itfor about three months now, and we’ve picked up two cases (of enrolment fraud),”McGowan says.
Across town inthe central Auckland suburb of Mt Albert, Gladstone Primary School is grapplingwith 120 per cent capacity.
Its roll hasbeen sitting at around 950 for the past few years. If an additional 20 to 30 childrenwere to turn up it would manage, but any more than that and there would be logisticaldifficulties, principal Dave Shadbolt says.
Averageproperty values in Mt Albert now top $1 million, and the suburb is doubly desirablebecause it is also in zone for the popular Mt Albert Grammar School.
On the positiveside the school is given a lot of advance notice of planned housingdevelopments in its area, Shadbolt says.
“Certainly, theexperiences over the last couple of years (is) we’re getting information early,enabling us to be quite proactive in terms of where Gladstone’s roll would sit,”he says.
Real estateagent Anne Duncan who specialises in Mt Albert says as the intensification continueshome buyers will need to think more laterally about schools.
“If the densitycarries on like Auckland Council wants it to with terraced houses, apartmentsand the like… I’d say that they’ll pull the Gladstone zone in.”
Nearby OwairakaDistrict School has been seen as the poor cousin, but she knows parents who arevery happy with it and not at all bothered about living in the Gladstone zone, shesays.
“Going forward,in Mt Albert historically Gladstone was the preferred school for many years,but Owairaka is doing fantastically well, there’s a new principal down at Mt AlbertPrimary, Marist (School Mt Albert) has always done well. We’re spoiled forchoices, really.”
The Ministry ofEducation’s Auckland Regional Schooling Network Annual Plan for 2016/17 says thecity is facing “unprecedented and sustained population growth”.
Statistics New Zealand’smedium population projections are for a 21 per cent increase in the number ofpeople aged 5-19 in the Auckland region between 2013 and 2043. In the sameperiod the 5-19 population in the rest of the country is expected to decline.
However, growthhas consistently exceeded medium projections, it says.
