School written off for 'disruptive behaviour' wins education award

Manurewa Intermediate School principal Iain Taylor has led a dramatic turnaround that has earned the school the supreme Prime Minister's Education Excellence Award. Photo / File

A South Auckland school placed under statutory management due to severe "disruptive behaviour" less than a decade ago has won the supreme prize in this year's Prime Minister's Education Excellence Awards.

Manurewa Intermediate, a decile 1 school of 750 students, was placed under a limited statutory manager in March 2008 because of disruptive behaviour, including one of the country's highest rates of vandalism and tagging.

Teachers walked around in pairs with walkie-talkies because of security concerns, the Ministry of Education paid for security guards at the gate, and student attendance rates were at or below 80 per cent in the years up to 2008.

Today the school boasts an attendance rate last year of 92 per cent - above the national average - and the cost of repairing vandalism has dropped from $105,000 in 2008 to just $4000 last year.

The judges of the Prime Minister's Awards said the school "has proven to be outstanding in its shared drive to raise achievement for every student".

"Working alongside parents, whanau and the community, this school has changed the lives of students, giving them a strong voice in their education and choices for the future," they said.

School principal Iain Taylor, who took over in October 2008, has led a turnaround that has included renovating the school buildings and playgrounds, creating student-led councils, and drawing parents into the school with a community centre, events for boys and dads and for girls and mums, and other events for Maori and Pacific families.

Fifteen students sit on a Curriculum Council that oversees what is taught and helps to choose inquiry topics, and six students make up a Pastoral Care Council.

The school fully funds all students to attend a three-day camp on Motutapu Island in February which it says has "enormous benefits back in school with engagement and learning growth".

Students enter the school well behind the national average, with only 29 per cent of Year 7 students last year achieving at or above the national standards in reading and maths and only 23 per cent at or above standard in writing.

But the school lifted those numbers dramatically by the end of Year 8 last year to 60 per cent at or above standard in reading, 54 per cent in maths and 47 per cent in writing.

Other awards were:

• Excellence in teaching and learning: Waitakere College and Invercargill Middle School.

• Excellence in leading: Te Kohanga Reo ki Rotokawa (Rotorua) and William Colenso College (Napier).

• Judges' commendation: Halswell School (Christchurch), for new approaches to teaching and learning in a modern learning environment created after the 2011 earthquake.