Mrs Pasley, who heads Auckland's Baradene College, said schools were screaming out for advice over the Health and Safety at Work Act, which comes into force next month.

Principals could be fined up to $600,000 if they fail to exercise due diligence and someone is hurt at school.

Some school principals are planning to put their homes into trust.

The Secondary Principals' Association sought legal advice for its members.

It wanted to know if transferring assets was necessary, but lawyers could not give them a definitive response.

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St Michael's Catholic School lost $15,000 in funding annually as a result of its being changed from decile three to decile four.

It was one of many schools hit by a decile review starting in 2014.

Education Minister Hekia Parata has reportedly made preliminary plans to ditch the decile scheme.

Rather, the focus would be on the needs of individual pre-schoolers and children.

The risk factors that might instead be used to calculate a student's funding include whether they have parents who've been to prison, been on welfare for a long period, or if the mother has no formal qualifications.

St Michael's principal Shelley Fitness said the loss of funding has hit the budget hard, but the school has ensured the level of education didn't change.

Ms Fitness said the blow has been softened by the generous support of Ngati Whakaue, but the school has still felt an impact.

"It's more affected things for our teachers. We now consider more what we're doing for professional development."

However, the decile system is not an inaccurate way to allocate funds to schools, Ms Fitness said, particularly because it's so difficult to measure.

"As far as we can see, there's been very little change in our community.

"We had the same clientele as the year before - the same kids, the same programmes - we just had to run it all on less money, so [the decile change] just didn't make sense to us."

The Secondary Principals' Association has said the changes along the lines suggested by Ms Parata could be a good thing.

But it is warning some protections would need to be put in place for children if the changes were to go ahead.

President Sandy Pasley, who is also principal of Auckland's Baradene College, said the changes would stop parents judging schools by their decile ratings.

But she said children would need to be guarded against stigma from schools and from other students.

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• NewstalkZB
• Image: St Michael's Catholic School