{"id":300698,"date":"2026-02-25T02:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/300698\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T02:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:01:08","slug":"new-classrooms-ease-overcrowding-at-high-growth-schools-as-rolls-soar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/300698\/","title":{"rendered":"New classrooms ease overcrowding at high-growth schools as rolls soar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flat Bush, one of the country\u2019s fastest-growing areas, has experienced rapid pressure on schools<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Te Uho o te Nikau recently opened 24 teaching spaces some 18 months after planning began. Its roll is now 568 and is projected to reach about 700 by year\u2019s end, and 950 by 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started here in 2024, we had six classrooms working out of our gymnasium, which wasn\u2019t ideal,\u201d Herlihy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then last year we had six temporary classrooms, which accommodated 12 teaching spaces and modulars while the new build was done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TeTe Uho o te Nikau Primary School’s new classrooms arrived this year. Photo \/ Ministry of Education<\/p>\n

The school now has three buildings with 48 teaching spaces, eight maker spaces, 16 large breakout areas, eight teacher workrooms and 20 smaller breakout spaces. <\/p>\n

Herlihy said the flexible design supports varied learning and specialist teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere at Te Uho o te Nikau, we have a te reo specialist, PE specialist, and a STEM teacher, who\u2019s creating a curriculum around sort of engineering, robotics, coding and heaps of new cool and engaging lessons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Education said the expansion was approved in 2023 but redesigned a year later to achieve required cost efficiencies.<\/p>\n

Herlihy said it positions the school for continued growth, with additional staffing expected as enrolments rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the ministry\u2019s point of view, what they\u2019ve provided is outstanding teaching spaces that are flexible and able to give us the opportunity to teach what we think is important for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s shift to standardised classrooms<\/a> has cut costs, with new rooms now about $620,000 each \u2013 down from $1.2 million in 2023 \u2013 while open-plan designs have been dropped. Stanford said feedback has been \u201coverwhelmingly positive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, schools are pleased with the value for money work we\u2019ve undertaken, which ensures they receive fit-for-purpose classrooms at a reasonable price and we can deliver more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stanford said projects are progressing quickly, especially in high-growth<\/a> areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, of 72 projects we announced between April and July of 2025, comprising 457 classrooms, over half are set to be completed by the end of 2026. The remaining projects being delivered in 2027 generally have more classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s education spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime said standardised classroom designs were already being introduced under the previous Government, which also gave schools more flexibility after concerns about open-plan environments. <\/p>\n

She said Labour upgraded almost every school in the country.<\/p>\n

In Christchurch, Pareawa Banks Avenue School has regained its library after a new four-classroom block opened this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe currently have two new entrant classes operating within the space and are expecting another one to open later in the year,\u201c principal Alli Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur roll had been growing over the three years that we had been on our new site, post-earthquake build, hence the Ministry of Education\u2019s decision to build four new classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Central Otago, Dunstan High School will receive six new classrooms, with the roll projected to grow from about 580 to 640.<\/p>\n

\u201cWood tech, food technology become an issue just because you can\u2019t, for health and safety reasons, put the really big classes in there,\u201d principal Andrew King said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve actually managed to work with the ministry to create two new visual arts rooms and a photography room, which then allows us to repurpose current classrooms\u2026 it\u2019s allowed us to kind of futureproof so kids can choose the subjects they actually want.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said rising house prices in Queenstown<\/a> and W\u0101naka are pushing families into nearby towns, including Alexandra and Clyde.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I know Cromwell has experienced quite steady, consistent roll growth over time. We\u2019re starting to feel we\u2019re getting people moving away from W\u0101naka and Queenstown, and moving into the likes of Alexandra and Clyde and Omakau.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the new classrooms, due in April, are arriving less than a year after being announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with that there\u2019s been a pretty comprehensive review of our overall structures, like our electrical upgrades, to make sure that we can deal with the capacity. The delivery team\u2019s been fantastic and it\u2019s been a pretty painless process for me as a principal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaime Cunningham is a Christchurch-based reporter with a focus on education, social issues and general news. She joined Newstalk ZB in 2023 after working as a sports reporter at the Christchurch Star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flat Bush, one of the country\u2019s fastest-growing areas, has experienced rapid pressure on schools. Te Uho o te…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7501,28824,806,1975,3952,3276,14806,81654,93283,8449,14744,165125,165124,296,117,111,43,139,108991,69,49189,6177,29192,25259,4062,6649,26213,3608,1316],"class_list":{"0":"post-300698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-7501","9":"tag-arrived","10":"tag-as","11":"tag-at","12":"tag-aucklands","13":"tag-chris","14":"tag-classes","15":"tag-classrooms","16":"tag-crammed","17":"tag-ease","18":"tag-gym","19":"tag-herlihy","20":"tag-highgrowth","21":"tag-into","22":"tag-new","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nikau","27":"tag-nz","28":"tag-overcrowding","29":"tag-primary","30":"tag-principal","31":"tag-rolls","32":"tag-school","33":"tag-schools","34":"tag-soar","35":"tag-were","36":"tag-when"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}