Tiny Te Hapua defends itself over ERO report

A report into the country's northernmost primary school makes frightening reading.

The Education Review Office said the safety of children and staff at the isolated Te Hapua School, just below Cape Reinga, is at risk from each other and the community.

The report highlights a range of problems including threats made to staff by people in the community, severe behaviour and bullying problems among students, allegations of a teacher using force to discipline a child, poor curriculum programmes, lack of qualifications among teachers and over spending on the budget.

But the principal and board of trustees have a different view of the school which they say is well down the road to overcoming problems caused by severe isolation.

Te Hapua is a small, extremely isolated, mainly Maori village on the Parengarenga Harbour, about 20km south of Cape Reinga.

ERO assessors visited the school in November when it had a role of 67 pupils, 65 of whom were Maori, and four teachers.

The report found concepts and values of kinship, care and love were missing.

"The education of students at Te Hapua School is at risk ... the curriculum is being poorly managed ... behaviour management difficulties are severely impeding student learning ... bullying and verbal abuse between students and between students and teachers has continued.

"The environment is not safe for students or staff."

When the Herald visited this week there were none of the sullen faces or crying children the tone of the report seemed to suggest.

School principal Bruce Ward said it was easy for outsiders to misjudge or ignore the difficulties faced by Te Hapua.

"Sometimes I think we are forgotten about up here."

The school had had seven principals and 15 teachers come and go since 1998, as they struggled to cope with the isolation and lack of accommodation.

"With that level of instability, it's not very surprising we were lacking programmes and documentation."

The school had tackled behaviour problems by standing children down from class or employing "time out."



The allegation that a teacher had used force to discipline a child stemmed from an incident in 1999, before Mr Ward's or the present board were at the school, and was very hard to prove, he said.

"It's no longer an issue for us and it wasn't at the time ERO were here."

Board of Trustees chairwoman Rose Lazarus said the supposed threat had resulted from a misunderstanding. It had quickly been resolved after a meeting with those concerned.

There was no confrontation at the school and staff had now been given numbers of Maori wardens to call if they ever felt threatened again.



Mr Ward said the review had not been all bad for the school and highlighted much the board knew it had to do. "But Rome wasn't built in a day."

ERO staff had since returned to the school and discussed the report with teachers and the board.

"They went right through the report and explained what they meant and helped the board establish an action plan."

ERO national manager for review services Charlene Scotti said staff had offered the workshop to the school as part of a new strategy being employed by the office.

"It is often helpful for boards in that situation to sit down with the people who wrote the report and prioritise what they need to do."