To ease enrolment pressure, school opts to become a full primary

A primary school has opted to keep its pupils for two more years, to help deal with what is expected to be thousands of extra pupils in an area near Nelson.

Wakefield School, southwest of fast-growing Richmond, said it planned to change from a year 1-6 school to a year 1-8 school, to help ease future roll pressure at Waimea Intermediate.

Wakefield School’s board of trustees said the school intended to expand to a year 7 programme in 2024, and to year 8 in 2025, in a process known as ‘‘recapitation’’.

During the two-year transition, families would be able to choose to send their children to Waimea Intermediate. Once the transition to full primary was complete, Wakefield School would be removed from the Waimea enrolment zone, and a zone would be reinstated at Wakefield.

The Ministry of Education last year proposed five primary schools near Richmond be recapitated and a new primary built, as one of three options in response to ministry projections of 3000 more state school pupils in the region by 2048.

Wakefield’s board chairman, Ryan Edwards, said the school was the first to consider becoming a full primary after 18 months of discussion in the community and negotiations with the ministry and other schools. The decision ‘‘reflected the view of a large majority of the Wakefield school families’’, he said.

‘‘Our community likes the idea of our children completing primary schooling in a familiar environment where their individual needs and interests are well known. We also think having just a single transition from primary to secondary will improve their learning progress.’’

Some parents had been worried that children would have fewer social and learning opportunities in years 7 and 8 at Wakefield, saying

Waimea offered a wide range of activities, ‘‘modules’’ and resources.

Edwards said the board was happy it had negotiated for families to choose to go to Waimea during the two-year transition. This was ‘‘a big thing’’ for some of those parents.

The ministry had also indicated it was ‘‘willing to have a discussion’’ about allowing students with a sibling at Waimea Intermediate to continue to go there, he said.

Wakefield School principal Peter Verstappen said parents often asked how the school would deliver a year 7 and 8 technology programme.

‘‘A common approach is for students to travel once a week or fortnight to a local technology centre, which in our case may continue to be Waimea Intermediate for at least the first few years.

‘‘But there are excellent models of full primary schools running their own technology programmes and that’s something we’ll consider.’’

Wakefield School had enough classrooms for the first few years of the change, and it was setting up staffing to ensure learning programmes adapted smoothly to the older age group, he said.

The board of trustees would now apply to the minister of education to approve the change, a process it expected to take a few months.