St Thomas of Canterbury College Enrolment Scheme Amendment 2023

Overview

The Ministry of Education has been working with St Thomas of Canterbury College to make some changes to their enrolment scheme taking into account feedback from an initial round of public consultation in 2022.

This amendment is required to continue to assist the school's board to manage a situation where there is more demand for enrolments than there are places available within the maximum roll, provide a fair and transparent process for enrolment and to ensure we are making the best use of schooling facilities across the network of local schools.

Click here for the purpose and principles of an enrolment scheme. (Right click to open in a new window) 

Click here for how this applies to a State integrated school (Right click to open in a new window)

Proposed enrolment scheme amendment (Right click to open in a new window)  

The proposed amendment reflects the Education and Training Act 2020 as well as recently redrawn parish boundaries. State integrated schools must accord priority to applicants for whom the school is a reasonably convenient school. Areas of reasonable convenience are identified for St Thomas of Canterbury College in the form of Qualifying Parishes (see maps below). Applicants to St Thomas of Canterbury College who reside within a Qualifying Parish will be prioritised above applicants who do not. This is a format that has been consulted upon and agreed with the Catholic Education Office and these changes align with amendments proposed and made to other Catholic single sex secondary schools in Christchurch.

This 2023 proposal now prioritises applicants from the Selwyn Parish on the basis that there is currently no Catholic primary provision in this area. It also proposes that unless there are exceptional circumstances, Year 7 and 8 boys will not be accepted from Catholic Primary schools with Year 7 and 8 classes. These changes will create more commonality with the enrolment scheme for Villa Maria College.

In addition, there is a proposed Additional Entitlement to Enrol provision, sometimes referred to as Grandparenting. This provision states that "Preference Applicants who are siblings of St Thomas of Canterbury College students enrolled at the date that the enrolment scheme is implemented by the school board, who reside within the Diocese but outside a Qualifying Parish, will be considered as if they are a Priority 1 applicant."

The St Thomas of Canterbury College Board has proposed that the wording "and any issues relating to obtaining preference certificates must be resolved with the relevant priest or a bishop appointed parish preference committee member” be removed from the proposed enrolment scheme in this second round of consultation. We would be interested in hearing any specific feedback around the inclusion or omission of this wording. Note that the process of appeal is set out on the Preference of Enrolment certificate for the Diocese of Christchurch and in the Handbook for Boards of Trustees of New Zealand Catholic Integrated schools.

The amended enrolment scheme for St Thomas of Canterbury College is proposed to commence from 01 January, 2024.

Note that all students who are already enrolled at St Thomas of Canterbury College before the enrolment scheme changes commence are entitled to stay at St Thomas of Canterbury College.

It is important that we hear and understand community perspectives before we establish these changes to the enrolment scheme at St Thomas of Canterbury College – especially the design of the enrolment categories and priorities.

Please have a look at the proposed information available before you participate in the consultation process.

This consultation process is about enrolment schemes, which determines the eligibility to enrol. Please see FAQs for definitions of pre-enrolment and enrolment.  

Please see the attached Parish boundaries at the bottom of the page.

What happens next

After consultation is finished, the Ministry of Education will collate all feedback and process this information to ensure it meets the requirements of the Education and Training Act 2020. If the Ministry is satisfied that the enrolment scheme meets these requirements, the enrolment scheme will be finalised and provided to the Board. The school’s board must implement the finalised enrolment scheme as soon as practicable.