Six area schools in the southern region are among the first to form ''communities of schools'' in New Zealand.
The Catlins Area School, Roxburgh Area School, Maniototo Area School, Lawrence Area School, Waiau Area School and Twizel Area School will begin collaborating in the new year in a bid to improve education.
''In each community, schools will work together to raise achievement through shared education goals,'' Ministry of Education sector enablement and support head Katrina Casey said.
''They will share and build teaching and leadership excellence.''
Ms Casey said 83 primary, intermediate, secondary and area schools from all decile groups had been grouped into 11 communities of schools in Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Marlborough, Nelson, West Coast, Canterbury, and Otago and Southland.
They would bring in changes which will improve education for almost 38,000 pupils, she said.
In the new school year, each of the communities would work together and with parents to identify its achievement challenges across a range of areas, including issues such as pupil attendance and engagement, achievement, transitions between different levels or types of schools, and pupil wellbeing.
''The critical thing is that the challenges will be specific to the community and will reflect the particular needs of the students.
''They will also need to draw up a plan to meet those challenges.''
Once this was done, funding would be released for new teacher and principal roles, and for paid time for teachers to learn from each other.
Ms Casey said additional funding would be provided for new leadership and teacher roles within the communities to enable sharing of knowledge while those teachers and leaders continue to lead and teach in their own schools.
''While these are the first 11 communities from the 71 expressions of interest we have so far received, we have another group of potential communities very close, for which we expect to be ready to seek approval in March, and another that should be ready before the middle of the year.
''We are still very keen to keep receiving expressions of interest and to provide advice and support to any groups of schools that want to form communities of schools,'' she said.
