Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School principal Shane Cunliffe said for the past three years “it’s been a fight” for the school to achieve sufficient staffing levels.
The principal of Tauranga’s fastest-growing school says insufficient Government funding for staffing caused it to overspend by $10,000 or more every fortnight.
Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School principal Shane Cunliffe said for the past two years “it’s been a fight” for the school to have enough teachers to meet the school roll’s “exponential” growth.
This year the primary school in Pāpāmoa East, surrounded by new subdivisions, was projected to grow by 157 students – the biggest increase of any Tauranga school.
That’s according to provisional school roll data released late last year by the Ministry of Education.
It showed every school in Tauranga but one is projected to grow in 2024.
The data predicts a school’s increase or decrease and is based on historic rolls and specific circumstances like a new school opening nearby.
Since opening at the beginning of 2022, Cunliffe said Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School’s rapid growth meant the banking staffing allocation, a tool the Ministry used to manage the annual staffing entitlement, was not enough.
“We’ve overspent that amount and are now in deficit, which meant the amount is now taken out of our operational funding for the school,” Cunliffe said.
“Last year we overspent $10,000 to $12,000 every two weeks,” the principal said.
Operational funding is the money a school board receives to manage the day-to-day operations of a school.
The new entrance classes, which should have an allocated ratio of 1 teacher to 15 pupils, were instead 1 to 30 and Cunliffe said this was where a lot of the growth was happening.
Burnout for the teachers was Cunliffe’s biggest concern.
“Teachers have to work much harder with continual enrolments coming in every week.”
Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School principal Shane Cunliffe. Photo / Alex Cairns
Ministry of Education deputy secretary Jocelyn Mikaere said the ministry provided extra funding or staffing as new students were enrolled above the provisional roll estimate.
“We will work with the school throughout 2024 to ensure that it has sufficient resourcing to manage expected growth.”
“Any further growth will be captured in later roll returns, staffing will be updated from the date of the increased roll and funding will be adjusted to reflect the change in the next quarterly payment.
“We can not comment on the school’s budget and staffing arrangements.”
Ōtūmoetai College principal Russell Gordon said the most stressful part of his role was “ensuring there are enough teachers to meet the needs of the students”.
The school was estimated to grow by 25 students but Gordon said the predictions were tricky, with last year’s provisional year nine roll dozens short of where it was by the end of the year.
His solution to this was to hire teachers in advance regardless of the ministry’s estimates so the school was well placed to start the year.
“Otherwise you’re running to stand still for the first term of a kid’s schooling and that’s just not fair,” Gordon said.
“If you haven’t got the teacher-student balance right, you’re left with classes that are 32-plus students until you can get additional teachers to come in.”
As a high school, they would have to employ a variety of specialised teachers to cover at least the core subjects of maths, English, social studies and science.
Gordon believed the school rolls formula “wasn’t fit-for-purpose” in growth areas like Tauranga where the whole city had been expanding for years.
Mount Maunganui Intermediate principal Melissa Nelson. Photo / George Novak
Mount Maunganui Intermediate was expected to increase by 43 students and as a result, principal Melissa Nelson said the whole school could no longer fit into the hall.
Nelson said they have been expecting the increase from their relationships with contributing schools.
“We know what’s coming about five years ahead because we know how many are in each roll at the primary schools.”
Due to the nature of intermediate schools where half the roll is lost and half gained, Nelson said it was normal to have positive and negative fluctuations.
“But over time our school roll is certainly growing and new buildings and teachers have been introduced,” she said.
Mikaere said the ministry recently reviewed the process for schools applying for staffing roll increases during the year
“We expect the proposed changes should make the process more straightforward.”
Harriet Laughton is a multi-media journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.
