The Home Zone

The approval process

Before approving a home zone the Ministry will need to be satisfied that:

• the zone meets requirements 1-6, set out on page 3 of these Guidelines;
• there has been adequate consultation, as required under Section 11H(2)
• the enrolment scheme complies, as far as possible, with the purposes and principles set out in Section 11A.

Ministry comment

When drawing up a home zone, a board cannot work in isolation.  This is because the legislation says that a board has to be able to ensure that all students have a reasonably convenient school which they can attend and at the same time the scheme must promote best use of the network of State schools in the area.  The location and capacity of all schools in the network have to be considered – including those of schools without enrolment schemes.

The term “reasonably convenient” is defined as follows in Section 11B.

Reasonably convenient school means a state school that a reasonable person living in the area in which the school is situated would judge to be reasonably convenient for a particular student, taking into account such factors as the age of the student, the distance to be travelled, the time likely to be spent in travel, the reasonably available modes of travel, common public transport routes, and relevant traffic hazards.  The meaning may vary as between different schools depending on such matters as –

(a) whether the school is a single sex or co-educational school;

(b) whether the school is an ordinary state school, a Kura Kaupapa Maori, a designated character school, or a special school;

(c) whether the school is a primary, intermediate, secondary, composite, or area school.

For any school, the “network” will include at least the school’s immediate neighbours catering for the same range of students, but it may also include other, more distant, schools whose rolls might be affected by the school’s enrolment scheme.

In the rare situation where it is judged to be appropriate to implement an enrolment scheme at a composite school, the school may clearly be operating as part of more than one network of local schools eg a network of Yr 1-8 schools and a network of Yr 9-13 schools.  It might therefore be appropriate to consider the possibility of multiple zones.    Special approval for this rare situation will be required and such approval must be sought prior to consultation on a proposed enrolment scheme.

The Ministry will not approve schemes unless there is evidence of consultation between the board and the boards of other schools likely to be affected by the operation of the scheme.  (See also the section on consultation on pages 20-22.)  Consultation is even more important when a neighbouring school also has an enrolment scheme, because of the requirement that every student must be able to attend a reasonably convenient school.

The legislation makes it clear that a home zone may exclude any area for which another school is also a reasonably convenient school for a student living in that area to attend.  The consultation record (see the section on consultation below) should provide evidence that neighbouring schools accept the boundaries of the zone.  If the board of the enrolment scheme school is unable to resolve any dispute that arises with the board of a neighbouring school, the Ministry may need to resolve the matter.  If necessary, the Ministry may use its powers under Section 11I(2) to require a board to amend its proposed enrolment scheme in a particular way.

The home zone may also exclude any area which it is desirable to exclude for the purpose of allowing the Secretary to make best use of the existing network of State schools in the area.  The Ministry will alert the board to any issues which it thinks need to be taken note of when the home zone is being developed.  Boards should discuss this matter with the Ministry at an early stage of the development of the scheme.

The purposes and principles set out in Section 11A are given more specific expression in the requirements set out on page 3 of these Guidelines.  In addition to checking that these requirements have been met, the Ministry will also consider more generally whether the home zone addresses the principles that, as far as possible, the scheme ensures that it it does not exclude local students and does not exclude more students than necessary to avoid overcrowding.  In that regard, the Ministry will not approve home zones which deliver an unnecessarily small percentage of the total intake.