Three senior Government MPs have visited an east Auckland school to announce a funding boost to help pupils who need extra support.
Education Minister Erica Stanford was joined by Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Takanini MP Rima Nakhle on the recent visit to Ormiston Primary School.
The three MPs were met by principal Heath McNeil and several of his colleagues before being treated to a cultural performance by a group of the school’s pupils.
McNeil then led the political trio on a tour of the school where they dropped into classrooms to chat to teachers and pupils and listen to the lessons in progress.
Stanford says the coalition Government is delivering the most significant investment in learning support in a generation to better support Kiwi kids to thrive at school.
“Too many children wait too long to receive support, or miss out altogether, on the help they need to succeed.
“We’re addressing this by investing in a smart, system-wide reform that significantly increases specialist and support staff resources in our schools.
“We’re powering up support to the frontline and investing early to ensure our kids get the tailored help they need, and teachers have more time to teach the basics brilliantly.”
Budget 2025 invests $2.5 billion in Vote Education with a focus on delivering a transformational boost to learning support funding.
Key investments include $266 million to extend the Early Intervention Service from early childhood education through to the end of year 1 of primary school; $122m to meet increased demand for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme for students with high and complex needs; $192m to ensure over three years all year 1-8 schools and kura are funded for a learning support co-ordinator; $43m for an extra 78.5 full-time equivalent speech language therapists as well as additional psychologists and supporting teacher aide hours.
There’s also $3m investment in teacher aides with targeted professional development for working with learners with diverse needs; $4m to employ 25 intern educational psychologists annually to enable a more sustainable pipeline of locally-trained workforce; and $90m of capital for about 25 new learning support satellite classrooms to provide around 225 new student places across the specialist school network.
Following the MPs’ visit, McNeil told the Times about how his school will benefit from the announcement.
“With the investment and rollout of more learning support co-ordinators, which in a school of our size, we would qualify for two.
“We haven’t had the opportunity to have learning support co-ordinators before, so this is going to be a real gamechanger for us in terms of more support for those learners who need extra resources, and extra brokerage of different support outside the school as well.
“It’ll allow us to put more resource to the child at the point of need.
“So having these learning support co-ordinators, along with the increase of the early intervention service to the end of year 1, it means that transition from early childhood to primary school for those children with additional needs will have that support for up to 18 months as they transition into school.
“That will help them, the educators, and their classmates in terms of giving them the start we all want every student to have.”
