Patrick Drumm: Mount Albert Grammar School headmaster on the rise of overcrowding in Auckland schools

Auckland’s biggest high school won’t accept out-of-zone students next year as population growth and roll pressure force it to close its books.

Rangitoto College is not alone - with other top public schools revealing they are likely to accept few or no out-of-zone students for 2026.

Mount Albert Grammar School headmaster Patrick Drumm joined the Afternoons team to explain the scope of the issue - and whether or not a solution to overcrowding can be found.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
So what can be done about at capacity high schools?
Joining us now is Patrick Drumm. He's the headmaster at
Mount Albert Grammar School. Patrick, very good afternoons?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
You yeah, good afternoon? How are you very good?

Speaker 4 (00:27):
What is causing the overcrowding of Auckland schools?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, I think we're just a sort of function of
other challenges around infrastructure, aren't we in a rapidly growing city,
and you know, you blink, drive around and blink, and
then suddenly there's another state house gone or another house
moved off, and three or four or five or six
other dwellings and that on that property within our school zone,

(00:55):
and they bring in families and those young people need
to go to school. So it's just simply a growth
is rapid and we're just having to cope with that.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
How many kids that Mount Albert Grammar and how many
would you be comfortable with?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
There are two different different questions, aren't there really? But
I mean we're an excess of three thousand, six hundred
students now and we've been growing and so in nine
years as headmaster here and we've grown a thousand students
in that time. So and that includes the COVID period
where things slowed down, But so we're looking at sort
of one hundred one hundred and fifty students a year

(01:32):
and the question about being comfortable is actually irrelevant because
they're in our zone. We've got to take students here
that there's no real choice about it. That's pretty clear
under the Education Act.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
There are some advantages in having a big school. I
think Mount Avragram is a fantastic school. I've got two
kids been there and everything they could want to do
is available to them, clubs, sports, whatever they want. That's
basically a city and whoever you are, you can find
your thing. So there is an advantage in being a
huge school.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Petro, I think there is. I mean these other economies
of scale financially well, and you're exactly right about the
ability to embrace diversity within our Auckland community. It's reflected
in the Mount Albert Grammar community as well. But there
is a place for everyone. There's something for everyone at
the school. So you know, there are some big advantages

(02:26):
you might be not having the greatest day with your
peer group, you know, at a particular lunchtime, but there's
another four or five hundred students in your year you
can go and kick a ball around with. So you know,
those sort of things, you know, are pretty important for
young people to say, work their way through. And I
think it just gives a huge opportunity for people to
rub shoulders with lots of different types of people, and

(02:48):
I think it's a great preparation for the next step.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Do you take it as a compliment that so many
people want to come to your school from at zone?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
We always want to be I think hit masters always
want to be running a school which you know has
gardener's confidence within your own community, certainly. But I suppose
the bigger question there, and it's the one that probably
can't unpack and five and it's is why parents, say
from outside our zone not choosing their local schools. And
I think that's a really serious question about around the

(03:17):
type of school and we provided in different types of schools,
curriculum assessment and those sort of things. You know, it's
a big, big issue.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
How many applications out of his own applications did you
get for next year? Not an exact number, but are
we talking in the hundreds.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, so for this year because there still things are
still open at the moment for twenty twenty six. But
we had we had six hundred year nine applications we
didn't accept last year. Oh my god, we accepted. We
accepted six hundred and seventy. So you know, you actually
can almost double your school role overnight when you look
at that. And that's even with us sending a pretty

(03:51):
clear message that we would have a very limited, if
any out of his own enrollment this year, but we
still had. I think it's shown that the concern that
many families have about this important process, which is finding
a school for your son and your daughter.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
What are the Ministry of Educationation's infrastructure plans to help
meet your demand, demand and sort of demand in general.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, well, we've been sort of advocating quite strongly. And
it's a group of schools around this area. Because if
I go to the periphery of our enrollment zone, I mean,
we've got Auckland Grammar, EPSOM Girls Zerolic capacity. You've got
your private schools pretty close on that boundary as well.
Western Springs capacity. Evondale College is moving up in terms

(04:34):
of capacity as well, so it's quite obviously needs to
be ExtraVision within the central area. At the moment, we're
just sort of dropping buildings onto existing site to cope with.
In other words, we opened a building for six hundred
students last year and that's a significant building.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
That is Patrick Drum Principle of Mount Albert Grammar.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
A fantastic school.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
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