Consulting your school community | GovHub Resource Centre

Community consultation is a two-way conversation that is an essential part of community engagement.

It’s how you identify your community’s aspirations and wishes, helping your board shape its governance accordingly.

And it ensures that key voices, including those often underrepresented, are heard.

Consulting goes beyond simply gathering opinions; it involves thoughtful planning, meaningful dialogue, and a genuine commitment to considering feedback.

There are even some situations where school boards consulting their community is a legal requirement.

Let’s explore when and how your board should consult, who you need to reach, and how to make the process respectful, mutually beneficial, and effective.

This article follows on from our Introduction to community engagement article, which has more information about the benefits of effective community engagement.

Who do you need to focus on?

Who your board should focus on connecting with will depend on your community and the nature of the topic being consulted on.

You should consider those who will be most affected by your decision. Consultation often includes students (and their whānau) who aren’t present, participating, or progressing to their potential.

Certain groups may require particular attention and focus to connect with.

The Education and Training Act 2020 outlines several groups that have traditionally not been well served by the education system.

Does your board have a relationship with these community groups?

Māori students.
Pacific students.
Disabled students.
Students with learning support needs, including gifted and talented students.
Students who are, or are at risk of, not progressing towards or achieving as expected across any national curriculum statements.
Students in respect of whom a care or protection order has been made under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989.
Students in the youth justice system.

Engaging with these groups will help you to identify any areas of improvement your school or kura could make to support these students.

Do you need to consult with students?

It is now a requirement under the School Planning and Reporting Regulations to consult with your school’s students where appropriate.

All schools should consult students in an age-appropriate way on items that directly affect them.

It’s a critical part of ensuring your school is free from racism, stigma, bullying, and any other form of discrimination.

Consulting with students goes some way to respecting rights recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Childopen_in_new.

By listening to students, your board also gives effect to students’ rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990open_in_new and the Human Rights Act 1993open_in_new.

What are some things to consider before consultation?

Making connections with your community is an important part of improving learning outcomes for all. To do this, you need to:

Understand who is part of your school and what you already know about these community members.
Reflect on the strength of your existing relationships with the different identified members of your school community. Consider where gaps exist, why, and how this might be addressed.
Identify who in your school community might require support to be able to participate in your consultation. Consider how you might be able to provide that support.
Identify if some groups within your community would like trusted representatives to work with the board on their behalf.

Remember, genuine relationships will take time and effort to build and maintain.

Always plan consultation in advance.

The Ministry of Education’s has some great resources to support your board and school staff in successfully planning for community consultation.

These can be found on the Ministry's Te Whakangārahu Ngātahi: The school planning and reporting frameworkopen_in_new web page.

These resources include a self-reflection activity to complete before consultation. It will help you consider how your worldview may influence your engagement approach and how you interpret what you hear.

Well-planned consultation will help bring everyone along on the journey, giving them a clear understanding of what needs to happen and why.

Include consultation in your regular board communications so your community knows what to expect.

If it’s part of your board’s workplan and school calendar, it’s easier for community members to find.

What should your consultation plan include?

A consultation (or community engagement) plan should outline:

The purpose of the consultation.
The consultation methods planned for each identified group.
Which group(s) may require a greater focus.
The questions you would like to ask them.
When and how a summary of the information collected will be shared back to the community.
How the information they provide will be cared for:
- Where will it be stored?
- Who might have access to it?
- How will their privacy be maintained when sharing or compiling the information provided?
- How long will the school retain it?
- How will the school return or destroy the information once they no longer require it?

Are you approaching your community the right way?

Every school, board, community, and group within your community is different and may require a different approach.

What is universal is that when engaging with anybody, your board should be genuinely interested in hearing and considering their views.
And that you are respectful and care for the information they share with you.

Considering the community’s views means listening to different opinions.

It’s about making decisions that support the engagement, progress, achievement, and wellbeing of your students, future students, and staff.

When must you consult your school community?

The Education and Training Act 2020 sets out when consultation is required.

All boards must consult in the following circumstances:

When preparing or amending your strategic planopen_in_new.
Making or reviewing a bylawopen_in_new.
Adopting or revoking a cohort entry policyopen_in_new.
Developing or reviewing an enrolment schemeopen_in_new.
In some situations, when varying the time your school is open or closed for instructionopen_in_new.
If your school is proposing to run multiple timetablesopen_in_new to allow students enrolled at another school to use your school’s facilities for a period of time.
If the board intends to make changes to its constitutionopen_in_new.

It’s a good idea to consult your community about big decisions that may impact staff, students, and their families and whānau, such as when developing additional criteria relating to the appointment of a principalopen_in_new.

Your board should also consult when it develops or reviews critical aspects of its operations.

This ensures you meet key educational and administrative responsibilities.

What are some ways to create opportunities for engagement?

Enabling as many community members as possible to have the chance to be involved will strengthen your ability to meet the needs and aspirations of your school community and improve outcomes for your ākonga (learners).

Your board should consider the following when setting up engagement opportunities:

Time:
- Hold meetings at a time that suits the group you are consulting with.
- Consider meeting for breakfast, dinner, or weekends.
- You may require several smaller meetings.

Place
- Not everyone feels comfortable attending the school, so consider holding meetings where whānau and community members feel most at ease.
- Consider places of worship, marae, and sports clubs (you may need to consider how accessible these are for those with mobility requirements).
Ask relevant questions
- Don’t just jump into what’s on top for you. Ask interesting and appropriate questions about whānau and community experiences and aspirations.
- Consider relevant histories – how well do we know each other?
- Do we need to start by building a foundational relationship, or can we delve into “harder” topics?
- Are our questions being asked in an age-appropriate way?

Accessibility
- Is everyone able to understand you?
- Would a translator be helpful for language support?
- Are we using plain language?
- Can hearing or sight-impaired community members also engage?
- Building relationships with key family members or community representatives who can support you in connecting with other community members in a meaningful way can be invaluable.

Cultural awareness
- Create safe spaces for conversations by honouring local tikanga and other customs.
- Connect with trusted community members to guide your board’s interactions.

Reciprocity
- Highlight that this is a conversation and explain how information is used, stored, and shared to benefit ākonga.
- Discuss when and how information should be reported back.
- Be truthful about the capacity and proposed timelines for the school to make progress.

Respect the history
- Show you have done your homework before engaging.
- Be aware of the history between your school and this community group.

Should you communicate results back to the community?

Yes, it’s a good idea to thank them for their time and contribution, and to explain what will happen next.

Demonstrate how their contributions have influenced your board’s decision-making.

It shows that your board has listened and taken the community’s thoughts seriously.

Members and groups in your community are now more likely to feel invested in the outcome, contribute in the future, and be open to forming a partnership.

Questions your board could ask

Who are all the members of our school community?
Have we identified the groups we need to engage with to improve outcomes for our ākonga?
Who make up our Māori community – tangata whenua, our local marae and their leaders, and the iwi and hapū our ākonga whakapapa to?
Which groups do we struggle to have meaningful relationships and engagement with?
When must we consult with our school community?
Have we factored this into our board planning?
Have we reflected on whether our previous consultations have been successful or not, and why?
How could we improve our future consultations?
Do we understand the privacy considerations that come with consultation, and do we have a secure place to store identifiable data? Who will have access to this and why?
Are we prepared for conversations to occur outside of formal consultation processes?
How do we handle the information this may generate?
Do we need to delegate responsibility for engaging with a particular group to an individual or committee?

Templates, resources, and references

Click on the link(s) below to access this topic’s templates, resources, and references.

Depending on your device, these may download or open in a separate browser.

Ministry of Education

Te Whakangārahu Ngātahi / Planning together for Ākonga success: Our School, Our Community open_in_new

Education and Training Act 2020

Secondary legislation

Other legislation