While one Southland school is reaching its maximum enrolment number, other Southland principals say they are managing increasing school rolls.
Like the rest of the country, schools in Southland are seeing a steady increase in roll numbers. Schools have more pupils than ever after an immigration-driven surge in enrolments pushed the national school roll to 831,038 children.
The Ministry of Education’s provisional rolls for Otago and Southland in 2024 showed a 1% increase, equivalent to 486 children, from provisional rolls for 2023.
Southland Secondary Principals Association chairman and Northern Southland College principal Peter Wilkinson said he was expecting 10-15 new pupils at his school next year and was welcoming the increase in enrolments.
"It’s good for us, we welcome extra numbers for a school our size — the more the better.
"I imagine some schools in Southland are at capacity for infrastructure and teaching staff, but for us in terms of fitting in the numbers we’re completely fine."
Invercargill’s Verdon College principal Jarlath Kelly said his school had reached its maximum enrolment number and needed to hold spots for preference pupils.
"It’s been a bit tricky for us and we’ve had to turn people away and we’re just trying to hold on to places for our preference students being a Catholic school."
Verdon College had seen a lot of immigrant families join and Mr Kelly said it had been positive for the school.
"A lot of our new-to-New Zealand families are from the Philippines and we have a very vibrant and thriving Filipino community. We have done for some years so that’s positive for us."
He said the school welcomed new New Zealanders and had teachers who could speak different languages to help cater for them.
Southland Girls’ High School principal Yvonne Browning said there had been an enrolment increase for the past two years and international pupils were returning in really good numbers.
She said the school was prepared to cope with the influx of pupils, whether they were international or domestic.
For primary schools in Southland, it was a different story because they were seeing a slight decline in enrolment numbers.
Donovan Primary School principal Peter Hopwood said his school had seen a peak in enrolments about five years ago.
"In the last two to three years those big increases have been going off to high school finishing with us so there is a slight decline of enrolments."
He said the decrease in enrolments was an expected decline and the school had planned for it.
His roll was sitting at about 400 pupils at the moment and was expected to go down to 350 at the start of next year but would climb to about 430 by the end of next year.
He said Donovan Primary School was a zoned school and its zone had a lot of rental accommodation so there was a transient nature to the enrolments because people would live in the area and then move on.
Waverley Park School principal Kerry Hawkins said his roll was between about 250 and 300 pupils depending on the time of the year.
The school had been using all of its 11 classrooms and as long as there were not too many unknowns plummeting out of the sky, he said they would be fine.
Mr Hawkins had a lot of international pupils from Columbia and although they managed ESOL, could always use more funding.
"We're doing all right but that's just through sheer chance and because we've got experienced staff."
