Southern View: June 28, 2016

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Tuesday June 28 2016
SECONDARY SCHOOL SELECTION
[Edition datE]
SOUTHERN VIEW
3
New Christchurch schools
to offer students more
AVoNSIDE GIrLS’ and Shirley Boys’ will
be the first single sex secondary schools in
New Zealand’s history to share a campus
– an arrangement their principals say will
enable the schools to offer their students
new opportunities.
The schools are to be built on part of
QEII Park, next to the Christchurch City
Council’s Eastern recreation and Sport
Centre.
Avonside Girls’ High School Principal
Sue Hume says the campus will be brand
new and state of the art.
“Each school will have its own teaching
spaces and students will spend most of
their day in a single sex environment.
That’s important to us. research shows
that single sex education benefits both girls
and boys…boys do better academically
and girls participate more. That’s because
they have space to learn and focus away
from the opposite gender,” says Sue Hume.
John Laurenson says the new campus is
a step forward.
“Because we are going to work together,
we’ll be able to offer more. For example,
we’ll be sharing some facilities, including
a performing arts auditorium, theatre
and cultural space, which enables us to
build bigger and better assets,” says John
Laurenson.
Another benefit is that the students
will be able to interact with and learn
alongside peers from their partner school.
“Students from both schools will share
buses to and from the campus, they’ll all
be able to use the café, our new library
and learning centre and our other shared
facilities. This means that not only will
they have all the benefits of a single sex
education, they’ll have social opportunities
not available at other single sex schools,”
says Sue Hume.
The Ministry of Education is currently
working on how the new schools will
be zoned but the schools are focusing
on catering to residents who live east of
Colombo Street.
“Because we will be servicing a wide
area, we will be establishing a network of
buses to service the campus,” says John
Laurenson.
Best of all, Sue Hume says the new
campus will open in 2019 so is not too far
away.
“In fact many of our current students
will be making the journey to the new
campus with us and those who join our
schools in the next two years will spend
their senior years there. It’s been a long
and sometimes hard road to get to the
new campus, but we are confident we’re on
track to create something even better than
what we had before the earthquakes.”
John Laurenson and Sue Hume
Year 9 students at work in Ngatahi
SECONDARY SCHOOL SELECTION