Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President on the number of schools over capacity

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Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President on the number of schools over capacity · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Schools apparently bursting at the seams. This is new figures
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: this morning from the Ministry of Education showing nearly fifteen
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: hundred schools are at capacity in terms of kids in classes.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Three hundred and sixty eight are over Schools say they're
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: basically having to make do put kids where they can.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Chris Abercrombie's DPPTA president with us this morning. Chris, good morning,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: good morning, Good to have you on the show. So
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  Speaker 1: how bad is it? How bad is it that there
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: are three hundred and sixty eight actually over capacity?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's really bad. And as you said, schools are
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: making decisions. You know, kids are working in the library.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I heard of one school that is using the Mason's
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  Speaker 2: Lodge across the road from the school to support it.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: So schools are trying to find really interesting solutions to
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: this problem.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Are they in any particular area or are they spread
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  Speaker 1: across the country.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It's mostly an Auckland issue, but there is also in
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  Speaker 2: other areas. So I'm from Southland and so you know
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: the schools will have thirty kids turn up to the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: if you've only got three hundred, there's a lot of
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: kids turning up all of a.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Sudden are you not inspired? What are you hopeful? Given
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Erica Stamford's announcement yesterday about the building of the new classrooms,
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  Speaker 1: the building of the new school in west Auckland, does
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  Speaker 1: that give you some hope.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, it's always great having new classrooms. We just
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  Speaker 2: got to supercharge that in a sense. So we've got
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  Speaker 2: to get those relocatables that she talked about sorted. So
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  Speaker 2: there's a seraplus of those so they can be delivered
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  Speaker 2: to schools when they need them.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Does it surprise you, Probably not, because you've been in
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  Speaker 1: the sector for a while, But it surprises me just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: how long it was taking for schools to get projects
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: off the ground. They spent years with the architects going
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  Speaker 1: back and forth and back and forth in walks Erica Stanford,
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly we've got a standardized plan that we can
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  Speaker 1: just replicate everywhere.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we used to have there, We used to
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  Speaker 2: have I mean eron or will listen and remember the
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  Speaker 2: Nelson blocks that were in a lot of schools, and
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  Speaker 2: so we used to have these standardized plans. We went
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: away from those, and it definitely slowed down the process.
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  Speaker 2: So hopefully we can get it sorted.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Why did we go away from them?
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  Speaker 2: Chris, I'm not entirely sure. There was this sort of
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  Speaker 2: model learning environment phase that we went through, but at
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the heart of it, teachers us want warm, clean, dry
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  Speaker 2: classrooms women went to call in summer and suitable for
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  Speaker 2: teaching and learning. There is an issue with specialist space,
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  Speaker 2: it's like workshops and labs, but I'm sure we can
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  Speaker 2: overcome that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Surely, surely, Chris. Appreciate your time this morning, Chris Ebercromby,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: who's the PPTA president.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 2:32
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• 2:35
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