Waihopai School is required by the Ministry of Education to operate an Enrolment Scheme. The Scheme was adopted by the Board of Trustees and came into operation at the beginning of 2005.

An enrolment scheme is a mechanism for controlling overcrowding in state schools. It requires the school to define a “home zone” and to manage its roll around an “optimum roll” - a number that is specified by the Ministry of Education.

Any student living within the Home Zone who wishes to attend the School is, by law, automatically entitled to enrol, even if the school roll is above the optimum number.

An enrolment scheme also requires a school to put in place a procedure for managing enrolments of students who live outside the home zone, but wish to attend the school. The process that the school must follow is a legal requirement, the required process summarised below.

The Board of Trustees decide each year how many out-of-zone students Waihopai School is likely to be able to accept (and at what Year level/s), and how many “enrolment” and “pre-enrolment periods” there will be. A “pre-enrolment period” is the time during which the school will accept applications from out of zone students for the next “enrolment period”.

At the end of each pre-enrolment period, the school will prioritise any eligible applications according to legally determined categories:

– siblings of current students

– siblings of former students

– children of Board employees

– all others

Places for out of zone enrolments are then allocated according to these priorities.

If there are more applications than available places, the school must hold a ballot to allocate them. Unsuccessful candidates in a ballot are placed on a waiting list which remains current up until the next ballot.