The proposed site at Mangawhai Hills Development is undergoing resource consent.
The proposed site at Mangawhai Hills Development is undergoing resource consent.
Plans to establish a secondary school in Northland’s fastest-growing district are chugging along nicely, with enrolment now open for students Year 7-13 for 2025.
Mangawhai Education Trust chairwoman Jill Corkin said she is “extremely confident” the college would be open by February 2025 and described a “steady flow” of applications coming in.
Corkin said the trust is in a “good position” to meet all their targets, with a classroom already two-thirds built off-site.
The schools’ first group will be a carefully selected group of 40, decided through informal interviews from June 10 onwards, she said.
“We’ve told the families and whānau we would be notifying our first acceptances by the start of July.”
Corkin said they would consider where the student resides, ensure diversity within the classrooms, looking at how the values of the trust will fit for the student and checking past achievement data.
“We will be selecting from that in terms of what we think the best mix will be,” she said.
“We’re not going to have all the resources a big school has and we don’t want to set the kids up to fail either.”
She said there has been support from both the community and further afield including other independent schools and Cambridge International Education.
“We want to become Cambridge accredited (next year) and they’ve been incredibly supportive.”
Corkin said it was through the generosity of the community that the college is being established.
“It blows me away really, we couldn’t do it without that.”
She said making the decision to go independent is always a risk however it has been well supported.
“It had to be tested, it wasn’t something that was a given.”
Corkin acknowledged there would be disappointed people in the community who cannot afford the fees but said the trust is working toward a model where some students may have their fees covered.
A term alone will cost $4000 to cover all necessary costs including staff pay and stationery.
In past conversations with the Advocate, Corkin said they would consider the charter model, however conversations with Associate Education Minister David Seymour have revealed it would not be practical.
“I think the charter school model has some merit, but we were already quite a way down the track, the timing isn’t going to be right for us.”
Mangawhai is currently home to a population of around 6,000, but has no secondary school. Photo / Tania Whyte
She said the reintroduction of charter schools meant contracts wouldn’t be signed until September - too long for them to meet their target of opening in February.
Currently, the trust is knee-deep in resource consent and the building process, she said.
“All of that takes time, and it’s not something you can speed up. It wouldn’t have worked for us. We weren’t prepared to change our timeframe.”
Establishing a school is not new to Corkin, who helped develop Snells Beach School and resided as principal there for a number of years. She was also involved in the development of a school in east Auckland.
She was made an Ordinary Member of the NZ Order of Merit in 2017 for her services to education and has held positions on a number of professional education bodies, including President of the Auckland Primary Principals Association.
Having seen how the process works under the Ministry, she has observed less “red tape” is involved by going independent.
“You’ve obviously still got to meet health and safety and be signed off from the ministry and establish a curriculum, but we’re dealing with a much smaller entity.”
Years two and three after next year will see up to 100 students enrolled and catering from Years 7-11. The goal is to cater fully to Years 7-13 by 2029.
The planned ratio is one staff member to every 20 students, with forecast growth of 20 students per year.
