a hostile takeover bid to turn Kelston Boys\u2019 High School into a charter school<\/a>. <\/p>\nA new education model?<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The new school’s website includes videos by teachers speaking about its Catholic ethos and teaching values.<\/p>\n
Somaratne said T\u014dtara Point School brought more choice to parents.<\/p>\n
It would be the first publicly funded school in New Zealand to offer the Cambridge Primary syllabus, which was previously accessible only to children at fee-paying private schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be offering it in a way that gives parents the opportunity to have it without the price tag,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The school would set up a mentoring system in which teachers regularly met every student one-on-one and would involve parents more deeply in their children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, the school will use the Spalding Method, which is a multisensory language programme that teaches listening, speaking, spelling, reading and writing simultaneously.\u201d <\/p>\n
The method was highly regarded, especially for helping students with learning difficulties, he said.<\/p>\n
Epsom\u2019s central location was chosen to make the school accessible to families from \u201call parts of Auckland\u201d.<\/p>\n
Opus Dei Catholic inspiration<\/p>\n
![\"Father]()
Father Sam Fancourt, ordained into the Catholic Church’s Opus Dei, speaks in a video on the website of the new Totara Point School opening in Epsom.<\/p>\n
Somaratne said the school would uphold Catholic teachings by imbuing them into daily life and developing virtues such as \u201cperseverance\u201d and \u201cfortitude\u201d.<\/p>\n
Father Sam Fancourt, who was ordained into the Opus Dei prelature in Rome, would hold Mass at the school.<\/p>\n
The founding families were also motivated by the teachings of St Josemaria Escriva, who established Opus Dei in 1928, Somaratne said.<\/p>\n
Opus Dei is a Catholic faction not bound to a diocese or geographic area; its leaders report directly to the Pope.<\/p>\n
Its priests are often seen as strict and conservative. Inspired by Escriva, some still wear a cilice \u2013 a spiked chain \u2013 and use a whip to create pain or personal discomfort as repentance and meditation. <\/p>\n
The group has also been involved in controversies, including a lawsuit by a group of women in Argentina who claim Opus Dei trapped and exploited them.<\/p>\n
Somaratne said the new school\u2019s founders had been \u201ccompletely open\u201d with potential parents about Escriva\u2019s inspiration for them.<\/p>\n
Why the Catholic Church prefers integrated schools<\/p>\n
![\"NZ]()
NZ Catholic Education Office chief executive Kevin Shore, pictured here in 2020 in a previous role as principl of Cullinane College in Whanganui. Photo \/ Stuart Munro<\/p>\n
T\u014dtara Point School\u2019s model differs significantly from the 238 state-integrated Catholic schools nationwide. <\/p>\n
Catholic schools follow the New Zealand national curriculum and a specially designed religious studies programme.<\/p>\n
NZ Catholic Education Office chief executive Kevin Shore said the church\u2019s education team had little to do with charter schools.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s Catholic bishops had signalled no interest in converting to charter schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason we\u2019re so committed to the state-integrated [character school] model is that there are very clear protections around special character that don\u2019t exist under the charter school model,\u201d Shore said.<\/p>\n
That included requiring a high percentage of teachers to be \u201cspecial character\u201d staff. In Catholic schools, that meant staff whose religious training was typically assessed by the local bishop.<\/p>\n
Catholic primaries required 60% of staff to meet this character. Charter schools required only one, Shore said.<\/p>\n
That was a \u201ckey difference\u201d for parents to understand.<\/p>\n
Catholic school students must also demonstrate a connection to the church, while charter schools must accept any student who doesn\u2019t object to the school\u2019s character.<\/p>\n
James van Schie, Auckland Diocese general manager, said that, although the new school was independent, the founding families had made the church aware of their plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school has not opened yet, but the early days of our relationship is warm and supportive, we expect this to grow over time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t see this school as a competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somaratne agreed, saying the \u201cthriving\u201d Epsom Catholic primaries with full rolls served their local parishes.<\/p>\n
His school, however, brought choice and marked a \u201cnew chapter in education\u201d. <\/p>\n
To symbolise that, he said, the parents had incorporated T\u014dtara Point in their school\u2019s name because it was the location of the first Mass held in New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u014dtara trust board chair and cardiologist Jithendra Somaratne said the school respected church teachings but would not be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6127,51,5195,54509,76864,93482,93484,738,111,43,139,69,93481,423,6177,4062,6649,45341,17294,93483,35028,61,73170,102],"class_list":["post-136944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-already","tag-auckland","tag-be","tag-catholic","tag-charter","tag-deiinspired","tag-ethos","tag-funding","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opus","tag-point","tag-primary","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-served","tag-suburb","tag-taxpayerfunded","tag-taxpayers","tag-to","tag-ttara","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}