Tamatea High School student fight: Parent frustrated over lack of communication

The school was placed in lockdown as police dealt with a nearby fight on Thursday. Photo / NZME

A Napier school parent is frustrated at the lack of communication from Tamatea High School after a fight involving students, which led to the school going into lockdown.

The lockdown just after noon on Thursday was brief, and described by police as a decision made by the school at the time as a precaution.

A police spokesperson said they had responded to a fight nearby among youths on Fryberg Ave. The spokesperson said there was “mention of a hammer” in the initial report to police, but a hammer was not found by officers at the scene.

The police spokesperson said, on Friday, they planned to refer those involved in the fight to Youth Aid “once we have confirmation of all those involved from the school”.

A parent whose child attends Tamatea High School, who did not want to be named, said his child witnessed an altercation on the school grounds on Thursday involving a group of schoolgirls.

His child told him the fight was eventually broken up.

A second fight then happened just outside the school grounds soon after, which is the one police attended, involving some of the members of the initial altercation.

The parent said he felt the school should have communicated better to reassure parents the incident had been properly dealt with.

He said, as at Friday afternoon, he had not heard anything from the school apart from two short Facebook posts.

“I was expecting a bit more from the school about ‘this is what has happened’.”

He said he felt they should have provided some reassurance to parents “that it has been dealt with and they [the students involved] are not going to come back [again on Friday]”.

Tamatea High School was contacted for comment but did not respond on Friday.

The school made a post on its Facebook page at 12.25pm on Thursday saying it was in lockdown, and posted again at 1.50pm to say the lockdown had lifted.

“During period three today there was an incident at kura [school], the police were called and we moved into our lockdown procedures,” the post, which has since been removed, read.

“Lockdown has now been lifted and our students are safe and back to their learning. Ngā mihi nui.”

St John ambulance was not called and it is understood no-one was seriously injured.

Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.