North Canterbury News: March 18, 2021

NEWS
The North Canterbury News, March 18, 2021
3
Schools in expansion mode
By DAVID HILL
Roll growth is creating some
challenges for North
Canterbury schools.
Amuri Area School and
Leithfield School are
awaiting new teaching
spaces, while work is
progressing at Swannanoa
and Kaiapoi Borough
schools.
Culverden’s Amuri Area
School is bulging at the
seams, beginning the new
school year with 365 pupils,
principal James Griggs says.
The school is awaiting the
Ministry of Education’s plans
for the redevelopment of its
senior campus, including six
new teaching spaces.
‘‘We started the year with
365 students, which we would
normally finish the year with.
The school is built for around
300 students, so we’ve been
needing the new roll growth
teaching spaces for five
years,’’ Mr Griggs says.
The six teaching spaces
would futureproof the school,
as well as replace some old
classrooms, while the
remaining senior campus
buildings are expected to be
refurbished.
Meantime, it has been
converting teacher offices
into small classrooms to
make do.
‘‘If you’ve got one science
lab and you need two, it’s
hard to deliver the programmes
you want to. It will
be fantastic when it’s done
Expansion ... Schools are growing in the region.
and will set us up well for the
future.’’
Leithfield School is busy
with the concept planning
stage as it awaits anew fourteaching­space
block,
principal Sharon Marsh says.
Two old classrooms are
also set to be demolished.
‘‘Because we are sited on a
terrace, there is some
geotechnical work that has
had to be done around site
suitability.’’
Kaiapoi Borough School’s
new technology block is on
track to open in May, which
will be welcome news for the
10 contributing schools which
use it.
Swannanoa School’s roll
growth has created some
extra challenges as it
prepares to celebrate its
150th anniversary during
Labour Weekend, principal
Brian Price says.
‘‘When we celebrated our
125th there were 40 students
and now we’ve got 340 —and
we’ve even reduced our zone
to support schools around us.
It just shows the growth in
our area.’’
A140 square metre
relocatable building, which
was used as atemporary
earthquake building, has
been transported from the
University of Canterbury to
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
provide some more teaching
spaces. But it pushed the
school’s power capacity to its
limit, so over the summer
trenches were dug for new
cabling.
The school has used its
government school
investment package funding
to create adrop­off and
loading zone on the school
grounds as it prepares to
accommodate afourth school
bus.
‘‘We’re changing the whole
entrance which gets the
buses off Tram Rd, which gets
busy, and the playground is
being moved over to the new
buildings,’’ Mr Price says.
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