Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Jon Briggs,
Pt Chev Primary – Pasadena Int. – Western Springs. My three schools. Wish I could afford to live in these zones so my kids could go there.
Yes. The property spiral in the 13 years we've been here has been crazy, but a couple of friends have found ways to buy, and there are still pockets of Housing NZ properties --- six dwellings in our little cul de sac for a start, and a bigger area opposite Western Springs Stadium.
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Hard News: Oh, Auckland, in reply to nzlemming,
There is, and down by Te Papa, as well as the corner of Victoria St and Vivian. But Russ’ point is that you don’t get the same scale and diversity outside south Auckland, and that’s because you don;t have the same population density.
Yes. I love that little Waitangi Park market, but at a guess Avondale would be 30 times the size of it and far more diverse.
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Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
If anyone want’s a bit of light reading, here’s the 2010 report commissioned that concluded everything is fine and dandy in the Western Bays
Thanks!
The Pt Chev bit:
As shown in Table 6.5.2 and illustrated in Figure 6.5.2, the roll of Pt. Chevalier Primary School grew slowly between 2006 and 2009 with sustained high new entrant intakes making up for lower than average new entrants intakes in 2001, 2003 and 2005. The July 2009 school roll of 615 was above its estimated capacity of 603 students. The number of 5 to 9 year olds Pt Chevalier East and West area units is estimated to have increased by 2 in line with but slightly less than the modest net increase of 7 projected for 2007 to 2009. Looking ahead, a lightly higher but still fairly low net increase of only 14 primary school age children is projected for 2009 to 2013. The primary school age population is projected to drop subsequent to that.
These demographic expectations and the momentum of the larger new entrant cohorts of the last few years driving the rolls significantly above current capacity in the short term to 2016 and then dropping down to a level similar to that of 2009.
This means that action is likely to be needed to manage expansion beyond the school’s current capacity to a July roll of about 640-645 in 2016 compared with the 615 July 2009 roll and 603 capacity, but that pressure is projected to ease with a falling roll in the medium term.
So by the end of the year, the school will be about 100 students over its capacity.
But the local population is, in keeping with the Unitary Plan, going to intensify sharply in the medium-to-long term. It seems essential to anticipate and provide for this growth.
Note that at least one big commercial business seems to already be thinking along these lines. Countdown is said to be planning a fuck-off big new supermarket on the wasteland between Great North Road and the (soon to be widened) motorway.
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Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Steve Curtis,
In 1927 its roll was 680 and in 1945 it was 900. Even after Pasadena Intermediate opened in 1941 and took the Form 1 & 2 students.
So what is the problem again ? Your roll is over 600 ??. So what.
So it's all okay because we can provision a 21st Century school like it was in the midst of a capacity crisis in 1945? Seriously?
The school site is 1500m smaller than it was in 1988, before the kindergarten was added. It has added 16 classrooms in the past five years, eight of them to cover roll growth. The only school with as many pupils per square metre of site is Mt Cook in Wellington, which has only 100 pupils. And it's going to get worse as a result of council planning decisions aimed at catering for Auckland population growth.
It seems that the decline at Pasadena is because local primaries are keeping the Form 1 & 2 students. Well if they went back to Pasadena that would take 50 or 60 students.
Pasadena has issues. About half the pupils who left Pt Chevalier last year went to Ponsonby Intermediate. And no, it's not a full primary.
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Hard News: Crowdfunding Time, in reply to nzlemming,
According to the Cactuslab site, Supermodel does have a GUI editor for the long form articles, but it doesn’t mention anything about comments.
I'm not sure it's a priority, to be honest. The comments styling does work and it might not be cheap to introduce full GUI editing.
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Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Julie Fairey,
To my mind that means only two options there; build up or charter schools.
And, yet, ironically, the ministry refused to fund a two-storey block at Point Chevalier.
I should note the the school is under additional pressure at the moment because it lost its admin block to a fire last August. The ministry promised to do the rebuild as quickly as possible, but not a thing has happened yet -- meaning the school is down to classrooms that have had to be given over to admin.
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The Herald's data dude Kamal Hothi has helpfully given me a link to the underlying dataset for his infographic.
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Hard News: Schools: can we get a plan up…, in reply to Allan Moyle,
Would be good if the Herald advised the specfic origin of those roll numbers used, I suspect they are they based on March Roll Returns to MoE, not end of year Roll. My wife’s school shows a small decrease 2003 >2012, but the 2012 end of year roll number was higher that than value shown in infographic.
They're July rolls, which is what the ministry funds on.
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NB: I made a couple of corrections and an update shortly after the post was published. It appears that, at the least, the problem is now being acknowledged.
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Hard News: Oh, Auckland, in reply to Mr Mark,
There’s nowhere else in the country this could happen
Newtown, south Wellington ?
I love Newtown and am there more than I am in most parts of Wellington. But the sheer, thriving scale, every Sunday, of Avondale Markets? No.