Te Papapa School, nestled in the Auckland suburb of Onehunga, has a role of 230 students -- of which the principal says only one is Pakeha.
In its last Education Review Office report, the decile two primary which has no zone was rated as "an asset in the local community", with "highly engaged students" who "make good progress and generally achieve well".
Despite this, and the changing demographics in Onehunga -- a former traditional blue collar suburb now home to many middle-income families -- the roll at Te Papapa is dominated by Maori and Pacific students from low-income families, principal Robyn Curry said.
"I worry sometimes that the children who are Maori and Pasifika wonder why there's not Pakeha children in our school -- because if you walk out on the street, they live there," Mrs Curry said. "It concerns us because we suspect that it is because we're 99 per cent Maori, Pasifika and ... [people] therefore make the assumption that because we're low decile that we will be a low performing school."
Decile ratings are used by the Ministry of Education to allocate funding based on the socio-economic status of the school community. The lower the decile rating the more government funding the school receives.
At Oranga School, a decile three primary about 1km away from Te Papapa, about one in five students was Pakeha. About 61 per cent of its 315-strong roll in 2012 were Pacific Islanders.
Onehunga Primary School, which has a decile four rating and is 2km away from Te Papapa, had a slightly larger, but similar roll make-up to Oranga.
In the six years Mrs Curry had headed Te Papapa -- which has a breakfast club as well as lap-top facilitated learning for its senior students -- the local community had changed.
"You can hardly buy a house now in Onehunga for under a million," she said. "Even to rent -- a lot of our families have been forced out of Onehunga because of the high rentals."
Te Papapa school parents, who are loyal to their little community, have similar suspicions about ill-conceived attitudes towards the Mt Smart Rd school.
Cook Island mother Star Alberton, a former Te Papapa student, had sent three of her children to the school.
"People stereotype, but my daughter went there and she's excelling."
The New Zealand Educational Institute said many parents failed to understand the decile system was not an evaluation of the quality of teaching and education at a school.
Executive member Lynda Stuart said any review into the system should consider what impacts decile ratings had on how schools were perceived -- however it was important to ensure any funding system was based on achieving equality in schools. Education Minister Hekia Parata has previously described the decile system as a "blunt instrument", and said it was being looked at as part of a wider review of school funding.
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Jan Derbyshire is a teacher at Te Papapa in Onehunga, where her son, Jude, 8, is a pupil. Picture / Nick Reed Shift to Te Papapa an inspired choice
Jude Derbyshire might stand out among the brown faces at Te Papapa School, but he has never felt like an outsider.
The 8-year-old -- who has two high school-aged siblings -- is in his second year at the Te Papapa primary school, after transferring from a decile 10 West Auckland school where his family lives.
His mother, Jan Derbyshire -- a Te Papapa teacher -- said the shift was the best decision she had made.
The family, originally from the UK, moved to Auckland two-and-half-years ago and Jude struggled at their local school, Mrs Derbyshire said.
"He didn't fit in, he wasn't happy, wasn't made to feel welcome -- felt very much an outsider.
"I'm talking mainly white children, didn't learn anything, was bored, and because he wasn't learning or being challenged, he was messing about."
While Mrs Derbyshire had been unsure how Jude would cope at Te Papapa among "all these different cultures", she was confident in the school's high quality teaching and learning environment. "He's just so happy, he's never been happier -- what's nice I think ... is that he's not only being challenged academically because of the good teaching, but he's learning about what New Zealand is like."
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Te Papapa School
* Mt Smart Rd, Onehunga, Auckland
* 230 students
* Decile two
* Roll: 26% Maori, 26% Tongan, 25 % Samoan 12% Cook Island, 5% Niue, 1% Pakeha, 5% Other
(Source: ERO report)
By Teuila Fuatai of the New Zealand Herald
