Tauhara College hoping new classrooms coming soon to fill shortfall

Tauhara College tumuaki/principal Ben Hancock in the school's assembly hall, which has been converted into a learning hub for senior students. Photo / Laurilee McMichael

The Ministry of Education says Tauhara College will be getting another village of classrooms next term, giving it 16 more teaching spaces.

The college has not enough space on its campus for its 703 students to attend the school at once.

A downpour at the school on November 25 last year closed its ageing prefab classroom blocks A, B, C, D, the college's gym and the art room. Only 13 classrooms of 50 were usable afterwards.

The Ministry of Education has put in 18 temporary classrooms and administration buildings and the school opened for the first term a week late but the college still faces a substantial shortage of classrooms. It also has 120 more students on its roll this year than expected.

Year 12 and 13 senior students spent most of February working from home and continue to work from home one day a week. When at school, they also spend two days in the school's "learning hub", which is the school assembly hall. It can have up to six classes of students in it at one time.

The ministry has agreed to put in 16 more teaching spaces, which are now being built and should be ready in term two, allowing the school to return to normal while longer-term planning and decision-making occurs.

A fenced-off water-damaged classroom block at Tauhara College. Photo / Laurilee McMichael

"Although exact timeframes for delivery [for the new teaching spaces] are not yet available, we are progressing this with urgency," ministry head of education infrastructure service Kim Shannon said.

"In the meantime, we continue to provide all possible support to the school as it adjusts to current circumstances."

Planning to fix the school's gym is in the final stages and Ms Shannon hoped work could begin within the next month.

The long-term outlook for the school's closed classroom blocks is unknown.

The ministry sent engineers and builders in December but declined to release a copy of their report to the Taupō & Tūrangi Weekender last month, citing confidentiality and the ability to maintain officials' ability to provide free and frank opinions to ministers.

It said more structural testing on the damaged school buildings was yet to be done and it was in the greater public interest to allow that to go ahead in "an atmosphere of confidence".

"Further destructive testing is required to fully understand the structural integrity of these buildings, work which cannot take place until April."

Once that work has been done, the ministry said it expected to receive a full report on the college's buildings.

"This in turn will inform options going forward."

The Village, the new block of 18 classrooms and administration spaces built under urgency at Tauhara College after 37 of its classrooms were damaged in a downpour. Photo / Laurilee McMichael

Tauhara College tumuaki/principal Ben Hancock said the second lot of eight double classrooms was due to be finished early next term. The buildings are being built off-site and will be moved onto the school's tennis courts area before term two starts. Building decks and fitting out science labs and food technology rooms would take more time.

The classrooms would be permanent but could be moved elsewhere on the campus once the master planning for the new school was complete, Mr Hancock said.

All senior students would be at the college full-time once stage two was ready.
He added that the feedback from senior students was that they were enjoying using the hall-based learning hub and wanted to still have time in there once more classrooms were available.

"There's flexibility, they're in control of their own learning, it's student-centred and they have the opportunity to interact with the teachers in smaller groups.

"A lot of the Year 13s have indicated that it's setting them up for life after school - independence, responsibility, self-motivation."

Mr Hancock said the school had good NCEA results last year despite Covid-19 disruption and was confident that despite the delayed start to the year, students and staff could stay on top of the work.

He said junior students in Years 9 and 10 were enjoying the temporary village set-up.

"The junior students are a lot more settled. We're noticing a lot less pastoral incidents. Because they're in a core class all the time not moving around, we're noticing a lot less social issues between kids.

"They are a lot more comfortable and relaxed about their environment, they feel comfortable in their classrooms, they have a good relationship with their teachers and the [Year 9] camps helped with that."

However all the change is proving a lot of work for teachers, Mr Hancock said.

"For the most part they are enjoying our new normal but there are additional stresses."

Ms Shannon said the ministry would continue to support Tauhara College to manage its short-term challenges to teaching and learning "while we work with urgency to get the school up to full capacity as soon as possible".

"We've also provided urgent response funding, additional staffing support, professional learning and development to assist teachers consider different ways of teaching and ongoing support from our traumatic incident team."