Schools/kura that have a hostel for students, will have the hostel reviewed during the ERO review of that school.
For stand-alone hostels, we will contact you when we need to conduct a review of your hostel.
Why we review hostels
We review school hostels to evaluate if students there are living in a safe emotional and physical environment that supports their learning.
School board of trustees or school governors have a responsibility for providing a safe emotional and physical environment for these students.
School hostels must be licensed
Under the Education (Hostels) Regulations 2005 your school hostel must be licensed by the Ministry of Education (the Hostel Licensing Authority).
The hostel must comply with the minimum standards specified in the Regulations.
How we review school hostels
We will seek evidence that students at the hostel are living in a safe emotional and physical environment that supports their learning.
We do this through discussions, reading documentation and observation.
We will assess the extent to which the hostel regulations are being met.
We may need to see and discuss:
- records of your ongoing monitoring of student well being
- accident and illness records
- reports you provide to the board of trustees, proprietors and parents
- your complaints file
- records of staff safety checks including Police vets
- records of your signing in and out systems
- staff schedules showing who is responsible day to day and at night.
We provide the following information to Hostel Managers and Proprietors of Integrated Schools:
Documents for you to complete
We ask the hostel owner and hostel manager to complete a Hostel Assurance Statement and Self‑Audit Checklists.
Hostel Assurance Statement Checklist - January 2023 - [630391] (PDF, 406.45 KB)
Hostel Assurance Statement Guidelines - January 2023 - [630391] (PDF, 480.45 KB)
For a state or state-integrated school/kura, we will arrange for you to do this at a suitable point in the evaluation process.
For a private school, we will arrange for you to do this before the review.
When you complete these documents, we ask you to confirm that you have taken all reasonable steps to meet the requirements of the hostel regulations.
We use the self-audit checklists to help decide where we need to follow up and what needs to be done during the review visit.
We write up our findings in a report
The outcome of your school hostel review will be included in your school's ERO report.
Stand alone hostel review reports are published separately as they are not linked to a particular school.