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Home / New Zealand

West Auckland school overcomes image problem

16 Mar, 2003 11:42 AM4 mins to read

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By THERESA GARNER

Five years after taking over a school with one of the worst reputations in Auckland, principal Owen Hoskin is offering Henderson High School as an example for others to follow.

He has also been invited by Unitec to speak at a course for principals.

Henderson High School has repaired its tattered image after using special Ministry of Education funds to pay a public relations consultant to improve its standing in the community and arrest its falling roll.

The school is one of the first state schools in the country to use professional PR strategists in the battle for school pupils.

In Henderson, parents were driving their children past the school gates.

"Any school outside the area was considered better than ours," Mr Hoskin says.

He said the school was never as bad as the reputation it developed during the tenure of the late Ian Kahurangi Mitchell. However, the perceptions were damaging the school.

"The school was seen as too slack, too liberal, too poorly led. The community thought discipline and education were poor."

Special business case funding is available from the Ministry of Education to support schools demonstrating "significant and complex risks".

At Henderson High, a school with capacity for 1200 students, the roll had dropped to around 400. It was in danger of closing down.

The school engaged Auckland PR firm Stratcomm to create and implement its PR programme over 12 months. The programme ended in term four last year. A total of $24,000 was spent on a community survey and public relations consultancy, and about $15,000 was spent on website development, relationship building and a marketing video.

The school is now achieving record enrolments, and has 577 students compared with last year's 484.

"Our growing roll tells us our community has confidence in our school," Mr Hoskin said. "We are attracting back a group of students that had been missing from our school roll recently - the high-achieving students from middle-class families.

"While zoning changes may have had some influence in the increase, we believe the key driver has been the programme offered at Henderson High."

Among the changes put in place are revamped teaching programmes and assessment, a new discipline and pastoral system, revitalised sports programme, and lunchtime and after-school study clinics.

Mr Hoskin sent out press releases about events, and said community newspapers now featured the school regularly.

"This is a major shift, as before we weren't a favourite interview subject."

The school had new relationships with feeder schools, and communicated better with parents of existing and prospective students through events such as open days.

A $3 million refurbishment has included a new administrative block to create a good first impression.

"There was no apparent entrance way. It is the first thing they see, and we don't want people saying 'this is a stink school'."

Henderson sold itself as "a little bit of country in the heart of town", which the local community seemed to like.

One of the most important changes was the move back to a full uniform. But Mr Hoskin said the core focus was raising academic performance.

The school now emphasises values, standards, and a "you can do it" philosophy.

"There is an increasing emphasis that students are here to learn, and achieve, rather than have a deficit model that rounds down the hurdles."

Stratcomm's Angela Penteado said in the increasingly competitive environment schools faced marketing was regarded as a must. Henderson High had a genuine story to tell.

"Their reputation isn't just a matter of putting a PR spin on it to make it look better."

Mrs Penteado said a growing number of schools were going beyond the website and PR handled by the principal to budgeting for the marketing of their school.

Independent schools have always marketed themselves, with some employing fulltime staff for the job, but low-decile schools, struggling to fund the basics, are more likely to do it in an ad hoc way.

Mr Hoskin said Henderson High's experience could assist other schools.

Ministry of Education senior manager Mary Sinclair said a communications strategy allowed a school to have a planned and systematic approach to providing information to its community.

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