Why weren't we told, ask school parents

Charlotte Baylis and Rebecca Amoore, both 14, say some girls have been crying at assembly over the school's merger. Photo / Greg Bowker

Students and their parents last night rallied to save the independence of Corran School after an announcement it was due to merge.

Parents were told in an email on Monday of the decision to merge the small private school for girls with Saint Kentigern College.

Corran Trust Board told them that from next year the Remuera school would be renamed Saint Kentigern School for Girls at Corran and would cater for primary school pupils only. Senior girls would be offered positions at Saint Kentigern College in Pakuranga.

Gathered in the school hall last night, parents asked the board why they had not been told of the school's dire financial situation earlier.

Many indicated that if they had been notified they would have been happy to dig deeper in order to save the school.

Corran has been operating for 52 years and parents said they chose to send their daughters to the school because it was small, single-sex and offered Cambridge examinations.

Yomiko Aoki, whose 14-year-old daughter had attended since she was 5, said her family were sad and angry.

"We are just so sad. It is such a lovely school and all of a sudden it will disappear."

Year 10 students Charlotte Baylis and Rebecca Amoore said girls had been crying at assembly. Some had not found out until they arrived at school because their parents had not read their email.

Charlotte said the pupils fully supported their principal, Sally Dalziel, who had no say in the matter. Ms Dalziel said she was not sure whether she would take up the offer to go to Saint Kentigern because she would have to change from Cambridge to NCEA and "it's hard enough having to change schools".

Parents told the Herald their daughters were distraught that the school they had attended since Year 1 was closing.

One parent wanted to know why the board chairman had stood in front of the school body at prizegiving four months earlier and spoken about the merits of an all-girls school with Cambridge examinations, only to turn around and encourage them to send their daughters to a school without these characteristics.

Another said her daughters had moved from Saint Kentigern to Corran because they had not enjoyed the school. "It's not for everyone," she said.

Old girls at the meeting were devastated their family's history with the school would end.

Parents asked whether there was any option to become state-integrated or to amalgamate with another private school such as King's College or Diocesan.

But board chairman Brent von Sierakowski told parents the arrangement with Saint Kentigern was "a fait accompli".

School numbers had dropped dramatically since 2003 from 480 to just 320 this year and the school accounts had been running at a deficit since 2004.

The school had been losing students to other private schools and with 145 students in the senior school it could not continue running in its present form.