When it comes to your child’s future there is no greater investment and act of love than providing them with a quality education in a quality school.
After all school is not all about math and literacy – it’s about lunch time football, joining the school band and learning all those important social mores from a young age.
We all remember that one teacher that inspired us to dream about the future we could have or whose advice has stuck with us to this day. And none of us can forget the worst teachers we had - the uninspiring, dreary and out-and-out mad kind.
It would be fantastic to believe that because all New Zealand children between the age of five and nineteen years are entitled to a free education, parents could pick and choose which schools were the best fit for their kids and send them there accordingly. Regrettably, the Education Act of 1989 requires certain schools to enforce enrolment schemes.
These schemes, while not compulsory, limit a school’s roll to prevent overcrowding. It may be the case that the school you approach doesn’t enforce an enrolment scheme because the roll is not full, so there is no need to restrict the number of children enrolling. However, this tends to be the case more in rural New Zealand where there is less competition for spaces.
Under the law each enrolment scheme must contain a ‘home zone’ with clearly defined boundaries. Students who live in the home zone of a particular school have an absolute right to enrol at that school. But what if you live outside the home zone and would like your child to attend that school?
Students out-of-zone will be accepted in the following order of priority:
- Students accepted for enrolment in a special programme run by the school
- Brothers and sisters of current students
- Brothers and sisters of former students
- Children of board employees
- All other students.
For all recent Mums and Dads it’s important to think about which schools currently lie in your zone and whether or not they would be suitable for your child's education in the future. With house prices skyrocketing it might be better to make a move preemptively so as to avoid remaining outside of the school zone of your choice.
Wherever this may take you, Conroy is right here supporting you.
