Other schools in Hawke's Bay had also been invited to sign up. "It's still in its absolute infancy. We have yet to decide on the main goals."
New Zealand's education system gives a high degree of control to each individual state and state-integrated school and its board of trustees, and studies have pointed to a lack of collaboration as a major problem.
The IES programme aims to help rectify that, and was a major announcement ahead of last year's election.
While opposed by the primary school teachers' union, the programme eventually won support of the Post Primary Teachers' Association.
Some principals believe the reform could create the most radical shift in schooling since Tomorrow's Schools.
The scheme uses $359 million over four years to create "communities of schools" where principals and teachers are paid extra to collaborate and provide additional teacher-learning time for the schools involved. There is also a teacher-led innovation fund, which provides funding and time for teachers to research with colleagues within schools.
Yesterday's announcement by Ms Parata brings the total number of schools involved to 222.
Each of the 29 groupings of schools will work with parents and the community to identify what could hold back students' achievement, and how such challenges could be overcome.
The NZEI has opposed IES and said its analysis of the first 11 groups of schools shows that larger, high decile schools such as Auckland Grammar are getting most funding.
Labour's education spokesman, Chris Hipkins, said that paying bonuses to teachers and principals from schools in wealthy communities would only enforce inequality in the schooling system.
Ms Parata said almost 60 per cent of the 129 schools signed up in the second round were decile 1 to 5.
"We know that the biggest factors in-school for lifting achievement are the quality of teaching and leadership," Ms Parata said.
"The biggest out-of-school factors are family involvement and community expectations. IES promotes all these."NZME.
