TE AWAMUTU NEWS | 1
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2024
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SEPTEMBER 19, 2024
School plans expansion By Chris Gardner
While one Te Awamutu school has announced it is full, another is planning to boost its roll. Waipā Christian School wants permission to add secondary schooling to its portfolio. Incoming chair of the board of proprietors Phil Strong and principal Jaco Labuschagne told The News they had made an application to the Ministry of Education seeking permission to expand the state-integrated co-educational primary school roll. The special Christian character school, in Chapel Drive, Te Awamutu, has been operating for more than 30 years and is limited to providing primary education for up to 104 Year 1 to 8 students. Strong and Labuschagne’s application to the ministry is to lift the roll to 154 pupils and add secondary schooling for Years 9 and 10. The Ministry of Education website says primary schools can apply to expand their year levels and change their classifications to composite schools to accommodate more pupils across different year levels.
The application comes soon after Te Awamutu College announced it had closed its doors to pupils from outside of its newly established zone – because it was forecasting a roll of more than 1450 in 2025. Strong, who has served on the board of proprietors for eight years and is also the pastor at the Zion People church in Te Awamutu, said the Christian school was in the very early stages of preparing for growth. “We are seeing a growing need in the community, and we have asked if we can extend our facilities to meet that need,” Strong said. Strong said the current Chapel Drive site was full of little children and had no room for teenagers. So, the hunt has begun for additional premises from which the school can eventually operate schooling for pupils in Years 7 to 10. “As part of our application we have suggested feedback from the community who would like to have choice. We have really strong support from the community.” In his pastoral role Strong is also working with Habitat for Humanity on an affordable
housing project on Racecourse Road, another project spurned on by growth. Before lodging its application with the ministry, Waipā Christian School consulted with Te Awamutu’s Christian community and further afield. “We started noticing that our enrolment numbers are picking up,” Labuschagne said. “Our roll has really grown, and we are sitting at 99 students. People are just looking for a Christian education. If its application is approved the school would look to adding Year 9 pupils in 2026 and Year 10 pupils thereafter. “Once we have a proposal in place for this we can go back to the ministry,” he said. The non-denominational school, which welcomes families from the Waipā and Otorohanga districts, is consulting with the local Christian and wider community on its plans. Waipā Christian School’s aim is to encourage pupils to become lifelong learners. Waipā Christian School was “well placed” in achieving valued outcomes for its students, the Education Review Office said in its most recent report in 2019.
Waipa Christian School principal Jaco Labuschagne has expansion plans
Council defends ‘low risk’ investment
A media release outlining a low-risk arbitrage deal to net a near $400,000 profit was in the interest of transparency and not intended to outline the council’s financial situation, says Waipā District Council deputy chief executive Ken Morris. He was responding to a story in last week’s edition of The News in which a Cambridge Community Board member, Andrew Myers, said the council was at its debt ceiling and the media
release should have focussed on the position of overall debt and the growing debt burden. Morris said a $50 million pre-funding deal through to April next year, was a good news story for ratepayers. “In our Enhanced Annual Plan we are due to take on $106 million of new debt before June 2025, and $50 million is a very reasonable, proportionate amount of pre-funding that fits well with our approved borrowing programme.”
The deal had been advised by the council’s treasury adviser Bancorp and was considered “a well-advised and measured transaction”. “One of the key things taken into consideration in determining the appropriateness of the deal was the interest rate payable on the borrowing, particularly in a market where the rates are anticipated to fall. The interest rate was in our target range and of course the pricing reflects market
expectations of falling interest rates over the period of the loan,” Morris said. He said arbitrage opportunities were not uncommon in the Local Government sector and Local Authorities were offered attractive borrowing rates through Local Government Funding Agency borrowing arrangements, which made such deals profitable. “In the two to three years leading up to Covid, we entered a number of arbitrage
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arrangements and netted over $1 million of gain over that period.” The council was working on its 2025-34 Long Term Plan and reviewing its financial strategy. “Explanations for increased borrowing and our plans to manage this over time, will be the focus of that financial strategy and we will be consulting with the community on that, in the first half of next year,” Morris said.
Ken Morris
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