Auckland- Puketapapa

Technical Notes and Definitions

Enrolling at your local school

Helpful information for Enrolling at your local school.

Glossary

Cohort Entry


Where a school is operating a cohort entry policy students start school in groups (cohorts) at the beginning of each term.

In schools which have adopted a policy of cohort entry, new entrants start school in groups (cohorts) through the year after they have turned five.

There are two entry points per term, one on the first day of term, and one at a mid-point during a term. Cohort entry does not replace the legal requirement that a child start school at age six. Parents, caregivers and whānau can still choose to not enrol their student before then.

The alternative is that a school operates a continuous entry of new entrants into Year 1 throughout the school year, rather than cohort entry.

Education Institution Number


A code assigned by the Ministry of Education to uniquely identify each institution. More often called school number when used in a schooling context.

Ethnicity


The term "ethnicity" refers to the ethnic group or groups to which an individual belongs. The concept of ethnicity adopted by the Ministry of Education is a social construct of group affiliation and identity. The Ministry of Education uses the definition of ethnicity used by Statistics New Zealand, namely:

A social group whose members have one or more of the following characteristics:

  • they share a sense of common origins,
  • they claim a common and distinctive history and destiny,
  • they possess one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality,
  • they feel a sense of unique collective solidarity.


    • Where possible, ethnicity data is presented as a multiple response. Multiple response works by considering each ethnicity a person affiliates with as one data entry. For example, the data relating to an individual who affiliates as both Māori and Pasifika will be included in both categories. They are, however, included only once in the total. This approach is easily undertaken when data is collected in a disaggregate fashion.

    Prioritisation of ethnicity is when people are allocated to one of the ethnicities they have recorded that they affiliate with. This usually occurs when data are collected manually and/or aggregate data returns are collected centrally. This allocation is performed using a predetermined order of ethnic groups. Where ethnicity is prioritised it is in the order of Māori, Pasifika, Asian, MELAA (Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African), other groups except European/Pākehā, and European/Pākehā.

    European/Pākehā refers to people who affiliate as New Zealand European, Other European or European (not further defined). For example this includes, but is not limited to, people who consider themselves as Australian (not including Australian Aborigines), British and Irish, American, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

    Exclusion


    Students subject to exclusion are not allowed to return to the school they have been excluded from, but must enrol elsewhere. Only students under the age of 16 can be excluded.

    For a school or region the observed number of exclusions is the number of exclusions that actually occurred while the baseline number of exclusions is the number of exclusions that would have occurred if the age-specific rates of the school or region were the same as a standard population (in this case the national population). Exclusions and age-standardisation are discussed more under Student Engagement.

    Language of instruction


    Indicates if students receive education instruction in te reo Māori or a Pacific language. The options are:

    1. All students taught in te reo Māori
    2. Some students taught in te reo Māori
    3. All students taught in a Pacific language
    4. Some students taught in a Pacific language
    5. All students taught in te reo Māori or a Pacific language
    6. Some students taught in te reo Māori or a Pacific language
    7. All students taught in English medium/other settings

    Students taught in te reo Māori are taught all or some curriculum subjects in the Māori language for at least 51 percent of the time (Māori Language Immersion Levels 1-2). Students taught in a Pacific language are taught all or some curriculum subjects in a Pacific language for at least 12 percent of the time (Pacific Language Immersion Levels 1-4).

    If a school has three or fewer students not meeting the above language of instruction threshold, it is considered to have ‘All’ students learning at that higher threshold.

    Retention


    The proportion of students that remain at school beyond the minimum school leaving age. Students can leave at 15 years-old if they receive an early leaving exemption, or they can once they are 16 year-old without meeting any special requirements. Convention is to measure retention until they are 17 which is beyond the compulsory schooling age and by when the average student will have had opportunity to fully complete senior secondary school.

    School Authority


    Describes the ownership of schools, that is, State, State-integrated, Private.

    School Equity Index


    From January 2023 the Equity Index Number is used to determine a school’s level of equity funding. The Equity Index Number tells us the extent to which a school’s students might face socio-economic barriers that could get in the way of them achieving at school. A higher Equity Index Number tells us that students at that school face greater socio-economic barriers to achievement. See the Equity Index for more information about the introduction of the Equity Index for schools.

    School Gender


    The gender of students that a school caters for, for example, co-educational school, girls' school.

    School Type


    The type of school is based on the levels students are taught at, for example, Full Primary School (Year 1-8), Contributing School (Years 1-6).

    Year levels have been included to help understand school types. Here the year level is current year level, which is the year level of the student's class cohort and the level at which the student spends most of their time at school.

    Stand-down


    Students on stand-down are removed from a state school for a specified period. The school principal can decide whether a student should be stood-down and how many days the stand-down will last for. Stand-downs, for any student, can total no more than five school days in any term, or 10 days in a school year. Following a stand-down, the student automatically returns to school.

    For a school or region the observed number of stand-downs is the number of actual stand-downs that occurred while the baseline number of stand-downs is the number of stand-downs that would have occurred if the age-specific rates of the school or region were the same as a standard population (in this case the national population). Stand-downs and age-standardisation are discussed more under Student Engagement.

    Suspension


    Students who are suspended are not allowed to attend school until the board of trustees decides the outcome at a suspension meeting. The school principal can suspend a student, but the school board decides the next step. The board may decide to list the suspension with or without conditions, to extend the suspension, or, in the most serious cases, to either exclude or expel the student.

    For a school or region the observed number of suspensions is the number of actual suspensions that occurred while the baseline number of suspensions is the number of suspensions that would have occurred if the age-specific rates of the school or region were the same as a standard population (in this case the national population). Suspensions and age-standardisation are discussed more under Student Engagement.

    Year Level
    Current Year Level (CYL)

    This is the year level of the student's class cohort and the level at which the student spends most of their time at school studying.

    Funding Year Level (FYL)

    Prior to 2008 this was known as Year of Schooling or MOE Year Level. The funding year level measures the number of years of schooling a student has received and provides the Ministry of Education with a method of counting students for funding and staffing purposes. The funding year level for most students is based on the date they first started school.

    The funding year level is independent of the way schools are organised and independent of the particular programme of study that a student may undertake. It is therefore possible for a contributing school (year 1-6 current year levels) to have students in funding year level 7, or secondary schools that finish at learning current year level 13 to have students in funding year level 14 or 15.

    Student Population

    The roll data presented in these tables is from the July roll returns. Ethnic group information in July roll returns is multiple response, that is, students who affiliated in more than one ethnic group have been counted in each ethnic group. Students are only counted once in the total. International students are treated as a separate ethnic group; therefore subtracting international students from the total roll equals the domestic roll.

    Year level information is funding year level, however funding year levels 14 and 15 are included with the year 13 students in the year 13+ category.

    Student Engagement

    Stand-downs, suspensions, and exclusions

    A state or state integrated school principal may consider the formal removal of a student through a stand-down from school for a consecutive period of up to 5 school days. A stand-down, for any student, can total no more than 5 school days in a term, or 10 days in a school year. Students return automatically to school following a stand-down.

    While stand-downs impact on actual opportunity to learn they are also a response to a wide range of concerning behaviours including drug and alcohol abuse and violence that are disruptive to the learning of the individuals concerned, and disruptive and unsafe for peers and adults in the school community. Stand-downs can offer an opportunity to reduce tension and reflect on the action which led to the stand-down. As such, if used in appropriate circumstances, a stand-down can be a positive mechanism for preventing escalation. However, its use should be part of a pro-active approach and should be kept to a minimum due to its inherent disruption.

    A suspension is a formal removal of a student from a school until a school Board of Trustees decides the outcome at a suspension meeting. Following a suspension, the Board of Trustees decides how to address the student's misbehaviour. The Board can either lift the suspension (with or without conditions), extend the suspension (with conditions), or terminate the student's enrolment at the school.

    If the student is aged under 16, the Board may decide to exclude him or her from the school, with the requirement that the student enrols elsewhere. This decision should be arrived at only in the most serious cases. If the student is aged 16 or over, the board may decide to expel him or her from the school, and the student may or may not enrol at another school. Again, this decision should be arrived at only in the most serious cases. Excluded (or expelled) students may face difficulties in enrolling in other schools. This may result in students:

  • accessing correspondence schooling through Te Aho o te Kura Pounamu,
  • entering Alternative Education provision (for excluded students),
  • dropping out of the education system,
  • entering tertiary study or employment.

    • Age-standardisation

    Standardisation is a technique which controls for the compositional variation between the groups being compared. Standardised rates give a 'true' comparison of the event being studied.

    An example of standardisation is age-standardisation where the age distribution could lead to misleading results. Age-standardisation removes the effects of the different age structure of the different groups (schools, regions, time periods) you are comparing.

    Comparison of suspension rates between schools or regions which may have different age structures would be inappropriate, because the age structure of the school or region can affect the number of suspensions and thereby the crude suspension rate. We standardise the suspension rates to take account of differences between the age structures of the schools and regions. This is also done for stand-downs and exclusions.

    The two main methods of standardisation are indirect standardisation and direct standardisation.

  • Indirect standardisation is essentially a comparison of the number of the observed events (suspensions) in a population with the number of expected events if the age-specific rates were the same as a standard population (in this case the national population). In this instance the comparison is multiplied by the overall national rate per 1,000 to give a rate per 1,000.
  • Direct standardisation is essentially an indication of the number of events that would occur in a standard population, say New Zealand, if that population had the same age-specific rates of the local population.

    • So more simply with indirect standardisation you apply a national rate to a local population and see which is higher/lower, while direct standardisation involves applying a local rate to a national population. For stand-downs, suspensions and exclusions indirect standardisation is used.

    Care should be taken when examining age-standardised rates, especially in the cases when small numbers are involved. When numbers are small, a very small amount of variation in the raw data can lead to a large effect on the age-standardised rate.