Over the next nine years, school rolls around the Ashburton District are expected to grow significantly, Ministry of Education estimates show.

By 2022 the ministry believes an extra 210 secondary-aged students will need to be accommodated and that at primary level an extra 75 places will need to be found, with 50 extra places needed at intermediate level.

Looking out to 2030, the ministry anticipates the district’s primary and intermediate school populations could grow by up to 460 with indications secondary rolls will peak in 2028 with up to 500 extra students and from that point will grow at a slower rate.

In its planning documents the ministry said that residential growth in Ashburton’s north was putting pressure on existing primary schools in the area and its master plan to ensure that growth was well managed came with the implementation of enrolment zones.

These are in place for a number of schools and after a long process, Ashburton College’s zone has now been signed off.

While the zone boundaries were close to what the school had requested, Principal Ross Preece said there was the odd anomaly particularly when it came to matching transport entitlement to zone boundary.

The college zone, effective from January 1, runs from the Rangitata to the Rakaia rivers and butts against the Mount Hutt College zone to the west, but there are two areas where the rules are less clear, Preece said.

Between the Rangitata and Hinds rivers there is an ‘open’ zone where students can choose to attend either Geraldine High School or Ashburton College, but there is a transport entitlement dead zone close to the Rangitata River that meant students would have to have private transport to a connection point with the school of their choice.

The Rakaia area has always been a grey zone for both Mount Hutt and Ashburton colleges, and this continues in the new zone boundaries.

Unlike the Rangitata open zone, however, school bus transport is available to both schools with the ministry saying this has been done to allow families choice.

And while zones are designed to give schools some certainty around student numbers, these were always difficult to establish until two or three weeks into the new term – after timetabling had been completed, he said.

The ministry has estimated the college will have 279 Year 9s in 2021, but 280 were already enrolled and the unknown was the number of walk-ups from families moving into the area.

Numbers also fluctuated with Year 12 students who may have indicated they intended to leave school, but decided over the summer to return.

And on the flip-side, there were others who found jobs over the summer, Preece said.

“It takes a couple of weeks to sort out, but I know our roll will be well over 1200 next year.”

Going into the new year, the college would be well staffed, but there were still vacancies for a head of department for science and a leadership role in the English department, but short term contingencies were in place to fill those gaps, he said.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 23 December 2020