The Rolleston School Board of Trustees would appreciate your support with providing the necessary information to the Ministry of Education for them to review our current decile rating.

What is a School Decile?

School deciles indicate the extent the school draws their students from low socio-economic communities.

We use deciles to target funding, for state and state-integrated schools, to help them overcome any barriers to learning that students from lower socio-economic communities might face. A school's decile does not indicate the overall socio-economic mix of the school or reflect the quality of education the school provides.

The lower the school’s decile, the more funding it receives. Rolleston School is currently a Decile 10. The highest decile level.

When are deciles calculated?

We recalculate deciles for all schools every 5 years following the Census of Population and Dwellings. However the last decile review done across the country was using the 2013 Census Data as the 2018 Census Data was not consistent in the way the information was collected. As a result Rolleston School has not had a decile review for more than seven years.

Why a review?

With the Selwyn Area (especially Rolleston) and community having grown and changed so much over the last seven years we believe it may be beneficial to explore a review in our decile rating. The ultimate benefit of this review would be increased funding and therefore increased resourcing for our students if our decile rating were to change. 

We need your help:

For the Ministry of Education to consider a review we need our families to provide them with the following Confedential information:

• Occupation
• Household Crowding
• Educational Qualifications
• Income Support

We will be sending home a Ministry of Education Family Survey asking you to provide personalised information on the headings listed above. Please note that only one questionnaire per family (not per child) needs to be completed. Only families with students who are currently enrolled in the school should be surveyed.

The family survey has been provided in English, however a copy of the survey can be requested in Māori, Samoan, Tongan and Chinese from the school office.

Currently we have 546 families enrolled at Rolleston School. For the Ministry of Education to consider our application we require 250 families to return the Family Survey Form. We would love ALL forms back as this will ensure we get an accurate cross section of our current decile.

Privacy Issues

The family survey does ask parents to provide personal information. We can guarantee the following privacy of the information that parents are providing:

· Inform parents of the reason for the questionnaire and the importance of completing it.

· Keep questionnaires anonymous - we will not write the student or family name directly on the questionnaire only an identifying number.

· Send all completed questionnaires, along with the summary of evidence excel spreadsheet back to the Ministry as part of your decile review application.

· The Ministry and Rolleston School will destroy all questionnaires at the end of the review process.

 What to do:

1. This week your child will be given an envelope with a numbered Family Survey inside. The number survey ensures that every family across the school has been identified within Privacy guidelines.

2. Complete the survey and return to school BEFORE - TUESDAY 15th September.

Student Incentive:

ALL RETURNED NUMBERED SURVEYS WILL GO INTO THE DRAW FOR THE STUDENT or STUDENTS THSAT IS DRAWN TO WIN A LUNCH FOR THEIR WHOLE CLASS.

Thank you

A massive thanks in advance for completing the Family Survey and returning it. The opportunity to increase our funding so we can provide more resources and opportunities for our students is too good not to explore.

Simon Moriarty (Principal)

Megan Harlick (BOT Chair)