Decile 10 school closes ranks over 'disharmony' report

The school has defended its decision to make parents aware of a report from the Education Review Office. Photo / Thinkstock

A top school has defended its decision not to make parents aware of a report in which the Education Review Office found "disharmony" between senior staff and recommended there be an intervention.

In a report on North Shore's Chelsea Primary School, dated January 25, the ERO said it "is not well placed to sustain and improve its performance.

"Governance operations are compromised by disharmony within the board. These poor relationships are a barrier to school progress," the report says.

There are positive aspects included in the report, such as students' high performance in literacy and maths.

However, the Education Review Office goes on to recommend that the Secretary of Education consider intervention to help deal with issues around school governance.

There are around 400 students at the decile 10 school, based in Birkenhead.

The school principal, Sue Mulcahy, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

After yesterday's article, board of trustees chairwoman Ingrid van Rijn said she was now the go-to person, as the principal would not be available.

Dr van Rijn said the school did not think it to be in the best interest of students to discuss complaints in the media. "[We] prefer to communicate with the school community directly."

In a newsletter sent to parents yesterday, the board of trustees defended its decision not to make parents aware of the outcome of the latest ERO report, released last month.

"Chances are you have seen the article in the Herald this morning about the Chelsea ERO report, so we thought it would be useful to provide you with some background information.

"As a board, we made the decision at the time not to publicise the review until we were in a position to be able to tell our school community what we were doing to address the issues raised," the statement said.

"As part of this we were keen to understand the next response from the Ministry of Education before communicating about the report so as to provide full information to our community."