Principal fires parting shot at ministry for ‘not doing its part’

2026-03-26 - 16:03

Te Kōmanawa Rowley School has been through a lot. Tucked in a corner of Christchurch’s south-west suburb of Hoon Hay, its buildings were rocked by earthquakes, it survived an attempted closure under the National government’s post-quake reorganisation, and, for a time, its board was disbanded and it was run by a state-appointed commissioner. Three families living within a few hundred metres lost someone in the 2019 terror attacks on two city mosques. Principal Graeme Norman began in term three of 2020, after Covid-19 hit. “The school, at the time, had been through quite a turbulent period. The roll had been dropping – it had dropped down at one point to 76 children in 2019.” Norman says when he started at Rowley, it was the lowest decile school in the South Island. (Decile was a socio-economic measure used by the ministry, until 2023, to determine funding.) He was the school’s 10th principal since 2010. It’s been quite the turnaround job. Restoring pride to the school was the mantra. Simple but important changes were made, like ensuring the grounds were well-kept and changing the uniform. Thanks to anonymous donors, at the start of the year each student gets free stationery, and their uniform paid for. Food is provided by the charity KidsCan. In 2023, Stuff reported the school’s roll had increased by almost half, and attendance had doubled. (The latest Education Review Office report, from 2024, said fewer than half of learners attended school regularly, and while achievement had improved, fewer than half of learners were achieving at or above curriculum levels in reading and writing.) The roll is now 250 – and growth is so pronounced the ministry has enforced an enrolment zone. The Education Ministry says $3.2 million was spent on Te Kōmanawa Rowley Avenue School in the Christchurch schools rebuild programme. Photo: David Williams “It’s unique,” Norman says of his school. “Currently we’re 47 percent Māori, 36 percent Pasifika – the highest rate of Māori and Pasifika of any school in the South Island.” It also has a high proportion of neurodivergent pupils. Rae Lālahi has lived and worked in the neighbourhood for more than 15 years. She’s the Cross Over Trust’s community liaison at Rowley School. “We have such a beautiful, diverse community within our school and it’s a real strength.” Labour MP Megan Woods, whose Wigram electorate office is just around the corner, says: “It is a school that against the odds, not only has survived but has flourished and grown.” Like many areas of Christchurch, there’s a surge of new houses in Hoon Hay. Norman says at a site around the corner there’s now 12 houses, with very little space for children to play, where there used to be four. “So they need places like schools to be able to come and run around and get some energy out and do that. The schools have to be the heart of the community.” ‘The ministry’s property adviser is available to support the school in all their property needs.’ Gary Anaru, general manager of regional property operations at the Ministry of Education Norman’s about to change jobs – he’s heading down the road to Oaklands/Te Kura o Ōwaka School, in Halswell. But he reckons the turnaround job at Rowley isn’t done. In 2017, he says, the school was earmarked for a substantial rebuild, with plans to spend about $5m, demolish the “middle block” of classrooms, and build a brand-new block near the back fence. That was whittled down to a refurbishment, and then even that plan was scaled back. “They replaced a few doors and windows and did a little bit of work, but nowhere near the work that was supposed to be done for the school,” he says, estimating the final figure was about $700,000. The refurbishment was done as cheaply as possible, Norman says, “to save money”. “We want our kids to be healthy; we want them to be warm,” he says. “Even if the refurbishment had been done properly, it would have made a huge difference.” Graeme Norman is about to become principal of Te Kura o Ōwaka/Oaklands primary school, in Halswell. Photo: David Williams Lālahi tells Newsroom the school has always had to push hard for improvements. “There’d be schools down the road that would get irrigation on their grass whereas we were pushing to fix the concrete, post the earthquakes, just so that children weren’t tripping over all the cracks.” On a quick tour of the middle block of classrooms (two of which double as the school hall), Norman points out single-glazed windows not made of safety glass, and louvres. “It’s illegal to have [louvre windows] in a rental, it’s illegal to have that in state houses, but we can still have it in a school.” Providing free stationery and uniforms to pupils is equity in education, Norman says. “We’re doing that but then the ministry is not doing its part to make sure the buildings are up to standard.” Gary Anaru, the Ministry of Education’s general manager of regional property operations, says through the Christchurch schools rebuild programme, $3.2 million was spent on Te Kōmanawa Rowley School. “The scope of this intervention included a redevelopment of the existing buildings, bringing heating, electrical and acoustics up to ministry standards and the reconfiguration of existing teaching blocks. “The administration block was reconfigured to help create a welcoming entry to the site. This was completed in 2019.” Extra funding has delivered a universal bathroom, replacement “hard-stand” concreted areas, and a heating upgrade. Many of the louvre windows at Te Kōmanawa Rowley School are south-facing. Photo: David Williams As part of the latest five-year funding cycle, the school received $143,684 in July 2023 for property upgrades. Their next cycle starts in 2028. “The ministry’s property adviser is available to support the school in all their property needs.” Lisa Dillon-Roberts, president of the Canterbury Primary Principals’ Association, says there’s been variance in the schools rebuild programme. “There have been schools and communities incredibly happy with the end result for their learners, and then there have been a variety of schools who have not been, and they feel that they haven’t been given the same amount of resourcing as others,” she says. “The whole premise of the programme was to bring all schools up to the same standard.” Has that been achieved? No, she says – “there have been winners and losers”. Anaru says: “The ministry aims to ensure all schools are safe, warm and dry for students.” Back at Rowley School, Norman gets the feeling the ministry is putting in minimal effort because it wants to close the school. “Because why not invest in it? You’ve invested in every other school in Christchurch, huge money, but not Rowley? And why? They can’t answer me that.” Anaru says: “Te Kōmanawa Rowley School is an important part of the local schooling network and there are no plans to close it.” Education in the area has been in a state of flux, partially thanks to the quakes. In 2018, Te Kura o Mōkihi/Spreydon School moved from Halswell Rd to the old Manning Intermediate site on Hoon Hay Rd. A new school, on Milns Rd, Halswell – about 1.5km in a straight line from Rowley – is due to open next year, with an expected opening roll of 250 pupils. “It’s stuck in the middle,” says Woods, the Labour MP. “Rowley is small but it is unique and it is critical to this community.” Te Kōmanawa Rowley School has quite the history. In 1973, when it opened, the area was “nappy valley”, Norman says. The Government had changed the rules so every fourth house was a state house. “This became one of the first suburbs to have that in New Zealand.” Consequently, there are many Kainga Ora houses in the “Rowley pocket” – he thinks as many as 230. He’s seen photos from the 1970s, and the footpaths weren’t even paved. That might have set the scene for future neglect. When Norman arrived in 2020 the concrete – laid in the 1970s by local dads at the weekends – was uneven because of the quakes. Remember, this was nine years after the devastating 2011 quake. It’s fixed now – as Anaru points out. Underground pipes were an issue, Norman says, and it was recommended, after a survey, the ministry replace them. “At the back of the toilets, there was raw sewage seeping out into the ground. So they ended up having to do it at that point.” There were also issues with the guttering on the administration building. When the building was done up, the guttering facing the street was replaced, but not the other side, despite it being rotten and leaky. “They just put some paint over it,” he says. “The school ended up having to replace the guttering ... that was $5000 [from the school’s operations funding]. Each year the ministry’s property team inspects the school, but Norman says it’s a battle to convince the ministry to undertake further significant work. ‘The school’s in the lowest socio-economic area of Christchurch. It should have the best school.’ Graeme Norman, principal of Te Kōmanawa Rowley School Bulging school rolls and quake rebuild hangovers are nothing new in greater Christchurch. Last month, Scott Haines, the principal of the South Island’s largest school, Burnside High, with more than 2700 students, lamented it was still using four early 1970s-era concrete teaching blocks that should have been demolished years ago. The Press reported Burnside was one of 10 Christchurch schools involved in the unfinished post-quake rebuild, which began in 2013. About $1.6 billion had been spent rebuilding and refurbishing 105 schools, the paper said. That’s an average of $15.2 million per school. Chisnallwood Intermediate, in Avondale, was noted as a school that has had no new construction. The Press reported: “The gym floor is not level, the building leaks, and mould has forced the closure of toilets.” In southern Christchurch, swelling roll growth has forced Somerfield Te Kura Wairepo primary school to turn its library into a new entrant classroom. It’s not taking out-of-zone students, including the younger siblings of current students. Māori immersion school Te Pā Rākaihautū, in Linwood, has battled for more than a decade for a fix to its leaky, mouldy, earthquake-damaged buildings. What weighs on Norman, as he prepares to leave Rowley, is the way the ministry treats the school. Last year, the ministry “came in and basically enforced a zone on us”. (Ministry manager Anaru says because of recent roll growth, Te Kōmanawa Rowley School was assessed as being at risk of overcrowding. “So we began the process of developing an enrolment scheme in line with legislative requirements”. The zone started this year.) Not having a zone enabled pupils struggling at different schools, out of the local area, to attend Rowley, Norman says. He recalls taking a Samoan family on a school tour. “The boy walked into the class and his face just lit up. He saw himself.” What helps neurodivergent kids is having single-cell classrooms, rather than open-plan, modern learning environments. “You’re just constantly having to fight to get things,” Norman says. “The school’s in the lowest socio-economic area of Christchurch. It should have the best school.” Education Minister Erica Stanford has been approached for comment.