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A school boarding hostel at the centre of sexual abuse allegations this year has been labelled unsafe in a new report that calls for the Government to step in.
Education Review Office reports dating back a decade on Wesley College at Paerata near Pukekohe have consistently identified concerns about safety at the school or its hostel.
The latest focused on the boarding facilities and said they did not meet minimum standards aimed at ensuring safety of students.
It highlighted the junior boys' dormitories as being of particular concern. About a quarter of junior boarders had been bullied this year and there were serious levels of thefts and abuse, the report said.
The decile-two Methodist school - NZ's oldest registered school and famous for educating Jonah Lomu and five other All Blacks - is state integrated but its hostel is independent and run by the Wesley College Trust Board.
Trust board chairman the Rev John Murray said the incidents noted in the report dated back to the start of the year, when junior students had just arrived. He said Wesley took "at risk" students that other schools did not want and aimed to change their behaviour and instil positive values.
"We are dealing with students who come from varying backgrounds and often come from communities where drug growing and dealing is the only way of life," said Mr Murray.
"They work through some enormous difficulties in those first weeks of school and we know that and we work desperately hard at it."
He said the ERO rejected the school's data showing students developed a "100 per cent clean slate" as they moved through the years.
"We struggle all the time with, 'Do we exclude some students or do we keep them on', knowing that once we exclude them, they are out on the rubbish heap," Mr Murray said.
The hostel had increased its security measures since last year and specialist consultants had been brought in to improve communication and management structures. A meeting with Ministry of Education officials next week would address the report, including the recommendation for Government support.
The seven hostels on the college site are home to about 350 students, or 90 per cent of the school's roll.
It is not the first time the school has made headlines. In March, the Herald reported that two Wesley College schoolboys were suspended over sexual allegations relating to other boys in a hostel.
The mother of an alleged victim - who spoke on the condition of anonymity - said she had discovered that her 12-year-old son had been jumped on by other students while in bed in his first weeks away from home.
The mother said yesterday that her son was at another school where he was doing well. She was continuing to pursue the issue of his mistreatment through official channels.
In February, a Year 12 student attacked in his dormitory suffered a fractured eye socket and was referred for a brain scan. In 2000, PE teacher Janine Rayner publicly admitted to having sex with a Year 11 student while she was a relief teacher at the college two years earlier.
The ministry's northern regional manager, Bruce Adin, said the situation was being treated extremely seriously.
"The ministry expects the school board and hostel board to address the present situation urgently."
Mr Adin said the meeting next week would include discussion about support the board would require to ensure the hostel complied with its licence to operate.
Under a cloud
Wesley College hostel findings:
* Serious levels of theft, abuse and harassment.
* Clear evidence of "inappropriate behaviour" from some juniors, including sexual harassment.
* About one in four pupils in the junior dorms bullied this year.
Source: Education Review Office
