Principal Tony Hunter said the school’s board of trustees agreed to pursue an enrolment zone during a recent meeting, in a bid to control the school’s burgeoning population.
He said the Ministry of Education had given the board a timeline with actions to take, and it would now begin working through that process.
Consultation was expected to be held with other schools in the area later this year, to create a proposed map for the zone.
It was hoped the zone would be up and running in time for the start of the 2018 school year.
The school had capacity for 540 pupils. Last year, the school had 533 pupils — the highest number on record.However, the roll had since decreased to 514 pupils, which had taken some pressure off the school.
"Last year we were full. We were utilising all our classroom spaces. This year, our roll is slightly less and we’re still using the same classroom space. We’re not overflowing.
"The ministry is expecting us to be at capacity for the foreseeable future.
"The enrolment scheme will enable us to manage our roll and prevent our school from being overcrowded."
There were no plans to expand the school by adding classrooms at this stage, because there was still "excess capacity" for year 7 and 8 (intermediate) pupils at other schools around Dunedin, such as full primary schools (year 1-7) and some secondary schools which took year 7 and 8 pupils, he said.
The school’s roll has been steadily increasing, from 374 in 1998, when the Otago Daily Times first started recording annual school rolls, to 533 in 2016.
He thought the increase in intermediate pupil numbers was caused by a growing belief among parents intermediate schooling was an attractive option for their children, Mr Hunter said.
The increase might also have been caused by growth in Dunedin’s primary sector, which was following through to intermediate level, he said.
The number of families migrating to Dunedin had also increased, he said.
Statistics New Zealand senior demographer Kim Dunstan said birth numbers in Dunedin went up between 2007 and 2012, so schools could expect their rolls to continue to increase.
Projections suggested a "fairly modest increase" in the intermediate school rolls over the next couple of years, he said.
