Deciles are a way in which the Ministry of Education allocates funding to schools
A school’s decile rating reflects the average family or whānau backgrounds of students at the school.
There are ten deciles and around 10% of schools are in each decile. Decile one schools have the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds whereas decile ten schools have the highest proportion of students from high socio-economic backgrounds.
The lower a school’s decile rating, the more funding it gets.The increased funding given to lower decile schools is to provide additional resources to support their students’ learning needs.
The decile rating does not measure the standard of education delivered by a school.