Ross PreeceOne year down the track, Ashburton College principal Ross Preece is hailing the school’s innovative Kohanga programme for Year 9 and 10 students as a major success.

Kohanga (the nest) was established to meet the needs of a small number of Year 9 and 10 students who struggled to meet the learning and social needs of the secondary school system.

Preece said the Kohanga system allowed those students to spend most of their class time in one room with one teacher and some impressive outcomes were being achieved.

The objective was to keep the students engaged in learning and if possible have them return to mainstream education.

For several, by Year 10 about 50 per cent of their subjects were now taken as part of a mainstream class, he said.

“The great thing to see is these kids are attending class regularly and to know they’re well supported.”

The Advance Ashburton Foundation had been a huge help in staffing Kohanga, paying 50 per cent of the teacher’s salary and providing $10,000 for learning resources, Preece said.

For the students involved, Kohanga was about more than learning, it was also about seeing that the system was prepared to put time and effort into their learning, he said.

“If you give these students nothing, then they’ll become youth crime statistics in five years’ time.

Success could be measured in seeing all of last year’s Year 9 students move on to Year 10 and the Year 10 students staying engaged in education into Year 11.

Some who were school leaving age moved on to the YMCA classes and that meant they were still in education, Preece said.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 16 November 2018