High marks for discipline

By JO-MARIE BROWN

Private single-sex schools are often seen to produce the highest academic achievers, but Cambridge High School bucks the trend in more ways than one.

The co-ed Waikato state school was ranked second on the Herald's combined qualification results table and credits innovation, high standards and sheer hard work for its success.

Last year, Cambridge High's Year 11 students achieved a 99.5 per cent pass rate for NCEA and acting principal Warren Purdy says staff were ecstatic with the results.

"People tend to rise to the occasion. If you expect them to do well they will," he says.

"We tell the students that if they enrol with us we will make it our business to make sure they get through NCEA so they know we're very supportive of them and they respond."

Cambridge High's tough disciplinary policy has often seen the school make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

A 15-year-old student was stood down for five days last year for writing a controversial "boner" essay, about a boy who got an erection, after being asked to write on the topic: how does your body betray you?

The school has also been criticised for suspending dozens of students for drug use, but Mr Purdy said taking a tough line was vital in achieving academic success.

"The culture of the school is that you don't bring drugs here and that you don't use physical violence ... [students] know that there are consequences for their actions."

To help students achieve the highest marks they could, the school last year devised a system called "achievement recovery".

Those struggling were identified early on and given extra tutorials. The school library was opened in the evenings for the students' benefit.

Another innovation was to phone every student at night who missed a class that day and insist they catch up on their studies.

"We didn't allow students to fall behind in their work," Mr Purdy said.

"We had what I guess you'd call safety nets so the students didn't drop out of sight ... It was a real concerted effort to get all the students through."

Some schools have been accused of manipulating pass rates by not allowing students who were likely to fail to sit the exams in the first place.

Mr Purdy admits that Cambridge's guidance counsellors do suggest other options for students falling behind and that had contributed to the school's high pass mark.

It was, he said, about doing what was best for each student.