Documented Need, Denied Support - ORS Declines in Practice After Budget 2025

This morning we released a new supplementary report to Still Beyond Capacity: Learning Support in Aotearoa After the 2025 Budget that highlights that despite funding in the 2025 budget, principals are being declined support when applying for Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS).

The full report can be found here.

Budget 2025 promoted itself as the fix to schools being able to access ORS for learners with the highest need. Principals celebrated that more learners would be getting the support they needed to be successful at schools, however, 12 months on Principals are seeing no change. Applications are continuing to be declined.

Across the examples gathered, schools describe learners' significant learning, communication, sensory, developmental, behavioural, personal care and safety needs. Many require full time adult support to access learning, communicate, participate socially, manage transitions, regulate emotions, remain safe or manage toileting and personal care. Despite this, applications are still being declined.

The stories also show that a declined application does not remove the need. Rather, responsibility is shifted back onto schools and whānau. Schools continue to fund teacher aide support from operational grants and local budgets. Teachers continue to manage complex needs in classrooms.

Below are a couple of lived expereinces from schools:

School Story 1: Curriculum Access and Cognitive Disability

School One applied for ORS for a learner with a diagnosed cognitive disability and significant language needs. The application documented that the learner required one-to-one support for learning. Independent learning was described as unattainable, and the learner was reported as working seven years below chronological age. The school also identified the need for support with curriculum access and transitions.

The application was declined on the basis that the learner did not have ongoing needs at a severe or very severe level throughout schooling. For the school, this reasoning did not reflect the evidence submitted. The learner’s cognitive disability, language needs and inability to access the curriculum independently were not temporary or minor concerns; they affected learning, participation and safety daily.

The impact of decline was immediate. The school remained responsible for supporting the learner without the level of funded adult support it considered necessary. Staff raised concerns about participation, personal safety, future attendance, teacher overwhelm and whānau distress.

School Story 3: Emerging Skills and Ongoing Developmental Need

School Three described a learner with global developmental delay who was working well below their year level across learning, language, motor and social-emotional development. The learner required significant adult support, repeated teaching, adapted learning programmes, daily specialist support and ongoing speech-language intervention. The learner’s oral language was described at approximately a three-year-old level.

The application was declined. The decision acknowledged significant developmental delays but concluded that emerging literacy and numeracy skills meant the learner did not meet the threshold for severe cognitive delay.

For the school, the decision appeared to rely on a small number of isolated skills while overlooking the wider pattern of ongoing need across learning, communication, independence, social skills and safety. The impact was reduced access to specialist support, increased reliance on school-funded support, greater barriers to learning and concern about future transitions.