This learning community cluster includes one state secondary school.

1.  Darfield High School

School governance

Darfield High School, while government funded, is managed by a board of trustees. Day to day management of the school is the responsibility of the principal.

The Crown is responsible for property provision to ensure students have access to their closest school.School boards are required to develop individual charters and annual plans and report their performance against these. You will be able to access the school charter from your school or on Find a school.

Education Review Office (ERO) reports on school and early childhood performance are publicly available.

Selwyn North learning community cluster ERO review cycle

Darfield High School

3 years

School roll changes

In March 2010, prior to the earthquakes, Darfield High School provided teaching and learning to 733 students. While individual rolls have fluctuated the roll has increased by 14 to 747 at March 2012.

Individual school March rolls, 2008, 2010, and 2012:

The following chart shows the ethnic composition of the combined cluster school rolls by percentage of total combined roll

Education achievement

National Certificate in Education Achievement (NCEA)  is the main secondary school qualification for students in years 11-13. NCEA can be gained at three levels – usually level 1 in Year 11, level 2 in Year 12, and level 3 in Year 13. Any student who demonstrates the required skills and knowledge to the level of a particular standard, achieves NCEA credits. Each student receives a School Results Summary that presents all standards taken throughout their school years, and the results for each. Since NCEA was introduced, more students are leaving school with qualifications. The National priority is for 85% of all school learners to achieve NCEA Level 2 by the time they leave school.

This table shows the numbers of school leavers in the Selwyn North secondary learning community cluster who gained NCEA level 2 before leaving school.

Cluster: Selwyn North Secondary

	Total no. school leavers			Māori			Pasifika
Year	Number below L2	NCEA Level 2 and above	Total no. of leavers	Number below L2	NCEA Level 2 and above number	Total no. of leavers	Number below L2	NCEA Level 2 and above number	Total number of leavers
2009	19	65	84	2	7	9	0	1	1
2010	30	59	89	3	4	7	1	0	1

Note: 2011/12 data is live and cannot be release

Special Education

Special Education delivers specialist services and support to learners with special education needs at Darfield High School. This includes support to the school, teachers, parents, families and whānau.

Māori and Pasifika provision

There are no Māori or Pasifika bilingual units, or language programmes in this cluster.

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision

ESOL provision for refugee and new migrant learners from non-English speaking backgrounds is not provided in this cluster.

Land – State schools only

School sites sit outside the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) land classification process and will not be given any Technical Category foundation rankings. The land in the surrounding residential area has also not been classified by the Canterbury Recovery Authority (CERA). Geotechnical assessments on the state school in this cluster indicates land issues will not compromise continued education provision.

Further Ministry commissioned assessments may be required at a later date, should any of these sites be further developed.

Buildings – State schools only

There are 41 teaching spaces included in the 5,874 square metres (of useable space) of teaching and learning and administration areas across this cluster of schooling provision. The teaching, learning and administrative space is incorporated into 21 actual buildings. The majority of these buildings suffered damage during the earthquakes. Repairs have been made to the building stock.

Condition assessments confirm over time earthquake strengthening will be required across three of these buildings within the cluster.

Building condition information – State schools only

	Number of buildings	Number of buildings with EQ damage	Number of buildings with strengthening required	Number of buildings with weather tightness repairs required	Number of buildings with both strengthening and weather tightness repairs
Darfield High	21	21	3	0	0
Cluster	21	21	3	0	0

Based on March 2012 rolls – a minimum of 40 teaching spaces will be required for ongoing teaching and learning in this cluster.

School rolls and classroom numbers – State schools only

	March 2010 roll	Classroom (no.) current (July 2012)	March 2012 roll	Estimated classrooms required at March 2012
Darfield High	733	41	747	40
Cluster	733	41	747	40

The way forward

Extensive condition assessments and engineering investigations have confirmed all buildings in this cluster currently remain fit to occupy. A number of the buildings across this cluster will, however, require remediation and strengthening over the longer-term. There are no buildings across the cluster which are not considered cost effective to repair at present.

Future planning

The earthquakes provide an opportunity, as outlined in the Education Renewal Recovery Programme [PDF; 881kb], to consider options for revitalising the greater Christchurch education network that go beyond simply replacing what was there. Discussions with schools, communities and providers within this cluster will be key to informing decisions around the future shape of education for the Avonhead education community. Ways to enhance infrastructure and address existing property issues, improve education outcomes, and consider future governance will form part of these discussions.

Community engagement

There will be conversations with boards of trustees to establish how schools in this cluster can deliver improved outcomes for its education community as well as restore services. In line with the support signalled in the Education Renewal Recovery Programme [PDF; 881kb] for improved collaboration, this will provide an opportunity to gain further suggestions around shared provision across schools and services within specific areas of interest and the wider community, as appropriate.

Check out the engagement schedule for further details.

Secondary schooling

Secondary, state integrated and independent schools located within learning community clusters will be involved in discussions around the future shape of provision within their education communities. A separate discussion will however also be held with all state secondary schools around secondary provision going forward.