'Each kid is our kid': west Auckland schools band together two months after Ranui attack

A man snatched an 11-year-old boy as he walked home from the Ranui Train Station about 4pm on Nov 17 last year. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Two months after a young west Auckland boy was abducted and sexually assaulted, nearby schools are banding together to make sure all pupils stay safe when they head back to class in a week.

Police are yet to arrest anyone in relation to the November 17 incident, in which a man snatched an 11-year-old boy as he walked home from the Ranui Train Station about 4pm.

The community rallied around the boy after he was attacked, with women from the area setting up the fundraising group Kiwis Unite-Community Action for Ranui Assault Survivor, which has raised almost $14,000 for the victim and his family.

West Auckland schools are also taking a stand to make sure no other kids are attacked as the new school year begins on February 1.

Henderson Intermediate Board of Trustees chairman Ron Crawford said there was "an elevated sense of risk for our children in the area".

"Because this individual hasn't been caught and we're not privy to the circumstances of what's going on there there is a heightened concern and that will be conveyed to our students and the parents."

Local police continued to work closely with schools to help educate kids on keeping themselves safe, he said.

"They've been up to the school and they've spoken in the school hall."

Both Crawford and Ash Maindonald, the principal of Western Heights School, said their schools and others in the area worked together to keep kids safe.

"There's a telephone tree activated when such incidents happen and all schools are made aware of the nasty things that are happening in our community," Crawford said.

"We all link in together and if one school has an incident that concerns, automatic emails go straight out. We're made aware of situations very quickly."

Maindonald said local principals had all exchanged email addresses and would inform each other of any incidents in the area.

"One of the things we've agreed to as a learning community is that each kid is all our kids. So if we see a child sitting on the footpath or in the gutter or whatever, looking distressed and it's not a child from our school, we will still stop and make sure that that child is okay."

More parents had started picking their kids up from school after the boy was assaulted in November than had done so before, Maindonald said.

Both schools would include a reminder notice in their back-to-school newsletters that the man who assaulted the boy in November had not been caught.

"Our radars are up and when school starts again the appropriate communications will go out to our parents and our students will also get the appropriate communications from staff," Crawford said.

Maindonald said teachers at Western Heights School would remind children of the steps they needed to take to keep themselves safe, such as walking with a buddy and not getting into a stranger's car. However, it was important to keep the risk in perspective.

"We don't want to freak kids out," he said.

"We don't want kids panicking and stressing and feeling like there's danger around every corner, but at the same time, we want them to be wise and be well prepared."