KEY POINTS:
The roll call at a network of Exclusive Brethren private schools throughout the country has more than trebled in the past five years.
The Westmount Schools, which accept only practising Brethren children, were established in Mangere, in Auckland, in 2004, and now have 15 "satellite" schools nationwide, in towns including Oamaru, Invercargill, Nelson, Timaru, Westport and Blenheim.
The roll had gone from 476 to 1555 since then, which will see the schools allocated more than $2 million of government funding this year, The Press newspaper reports today.
Marcella Marshall, administrator for the Westmount school in Templeton, south of Christchurch, said the schools were popular because they had a better environment than "normal" schools.
"You just don't get any of the things you get at normal state schools. I'd say the kids are more of a higher class.
"They're still normal kids, you do get behaviour problems, you just don't get the graffiti, and the chewing gum and the knives and whatever else you get at normal schools."
Massey University historian Peter Lineham, who was brought up as a Brethren and has studied the sect, said the Westmount schools were growing because Brethren were worried about their children being socialised into wider society.
"They would have generally been concerned about some science instruction but they were mostly allowed to go through normal schooling," he said.
Mr Lineham said the Brethren had "an enormous amount of money" to spend on their schools.
Teachers at the schools are all non-Brethren because members of the religious group do not attend tertiary education so cannot be registered teachers.
An Education Review Office report said the Westmount national office in Mangere set policies that reflected a Brethren ethos and encouraged a learning environment conducive to the Brethren philosophy.
- NZPA
