Intermediate School Zoning Scheme

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31780, 10 September 1968, Page 18

Intermediate School Zoning Scheme

The Canterbury Education Board has given notice to some primary schools in the northern half of Christchurch that they will be zoned for sending pupils to intermediate schools under a scheme beginning next year.

The board’s letter suggests that the closer relationships in the curricula of primary, intermediate, and secondary schools in a given district makes it desirable for pupils to go through that district's pattern. The letter says the board has decided on a revision of the forward planning of the intermediate school system. Three schools in the northwest sector had options of sending pupils to Cobham or Heaton Intermediate Schools. St Albans had the option of Heaton or Shirley Intermediate School. It was now considered unwise to continue the dispersal of such pupils to more than one intermediate school. The board planned to “phase out” the present “split contributions” by 1972 in the St Albans, Aorangi, Fendalton and Wairakei contributing school districts. As a first stage, the letter said, co-operation of school committees, headmasters, and parents was being sought with a view to all St Albans pupils going to Heaton and all Aorangi pupils going to Cobham in 1969: The St Albans School has been told that only 11 to 17 of its pupils seek entry to Shirley Intermediate; but some parents there object to any direction because they see entry to Shirley Intermediate as a “leg in” to Shir-

ley Boys’ High School for their boys. The board says such a move out of the district will in future be approved only in extraordinary circumstances. St Albans parents have been circularised seeking their views on the proposal and inviting them to a meeting on September 18. The board says the approval of the Minister of Education will be necessary tor the change, but it is ascertaining he reaction first.