here<\/a>.<\/p>\nState schools are obliged to provide free education to every child living within their catchment zones and do not always have room for those outside their boundaries.<\/p>\n
Parents may consequently have a preferred state school but be prevented from sending their child there because of high house prices.<\/p>\n
The Herald and Valocity have calculated house prices for all schools with zones defined by the Ministry of Education by taking into account every street inside their catchments.<\/p>\n
For schools without zones, we calculated the median house price for the suburb where the school is located and each suburb surrounding it.<\/p>\n
The prices are the median price since the middle of last year.<\/p>\n
The achievement rate in the table shows the percentage of students aged 16 or over who left each school in 2024 with an NCEA level 3 certificate.<\/p>\n
This so-called leavers rate is the measure typically used by the Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n
![\"Choralation]()
Choralation \u2013 the combined choir from Westlake Boys’ and Girls’ high schools. Both schools feature among lists of high-achieving state schools. Photo \/ Gino Demeer<\/p>\n
House prices under $1.5m<\/p>\n
Highly regarded public schools Westlake Girls\u2019 High School (86%), Westlake Boys (84%) and Rangitoto College (83%) achieved the highest 2024 NCEA achievement rates among big state schools in Auckland. <\/p>\n
However, their zones have typical house prices between $1.3m and $1.5m.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, some schools achieved similar or higher achievement rates in locations where housing is much cheaper.<\/p>\n
That included the Wellington schools mentioned above and Napier Girls\u2019 High School, which had an 80% achievement rate in a zone with typical homes costing $710,000, almost half the price of the two Westlake schools in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Christchurch Girls\u2019 High School also stood out as the South Island\u2019s highest-achieving state school at 81%, with a zone price of $885,000.<\/p>\n
House prices under $800,000<\/p>\n
The under-$800,000 bracket contains some of the smartest choices in the country.<\/p>\n
It is the \u201cgolden combination\u201d zone mentioned above \u2013 containing the five schools that achieved at least a 70% achievement rate while sitting in zones costing under $800,000.<\/p>\n
Those schools are Wellington College (85%, $773,500), Auckland Girls\u2019 Grammar (81%, $749,000), Napier Girls\u2019 High School (80%, $710,000), Cashmere High School in Christchurch (73%, $759,000) and Palmerston North Girls\u2019 High School (71%, $790,000).<\/p>\n
Outside those five, Otago Girls\u2019 High School in Dunedin achieved a 66% achievement rate in a $650,000 median zone \u2013 one of the South Island\u2019s most affordable options.<\/p>\n
Southland Girls\u2019 High School in Invercargill achieved a 65% achievement rate in what was the country\u2019s cheapest state school zone at $390,000.<\/p>\n
![\"Auckland]()
Auckland Girls’ Grammar School is one of five state schools with achievement rates above 70% and houses in their zone with median prices below $800,000.<\/p>\n
House prices under $600,000<\/p>\n
For families on tighter budgets, the options narrow but don\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n
Southland Girls\u2019 High School\u2019s 65% achievement rate is the highest among schools in zones costing less than $600,000.<\/p>\n
Homes near the Invercargill school typically cost just $390,000.<\/p>\n
Tolaga Bay Area School on the East Cape achieved a 61% achievement rate with a median house price of $415,000, while Logan Park High School in Dunedin achieved 58% at $595,000.<\/p>\n
Save<\/a>Share this article<\/p>\nReminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.<\/p>\n
Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to know which top-performing high schools are close to affordable housing? The Herald\u2019s Ben Leahy is back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7615,30884,36966,9092,28358,8133,22509,1863,651,28245,802,6435,30689,2959,10053,3339,221,6036,700,30690,36089,117,111,43,139,69,1118,12937,28225,19257,7676,5909,4062,6649,5348,165,181859,4524,5977,102,1959],"class_list":["post-340202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-7615","tag-achievement","tag-affordable","tag-against","tag-alongside","tag-analysis","tag-areas","tag-back","tag-close","tag-colleges","tag-costs","tag-does","tag-heralds","tag-high","tag-house","tag-housing","tag-how","tag-know","tag-latest","tag-leahy","tag-ncea","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-prices","tag-ranked","tag-rate","tag-rates","tag-results","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-showing","tag-their","tag-topperforming","tag-want","tag-which","tag-with","tag-your"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340202","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=340202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}