Wakatipu High’s board believes more local kids will stay here with a proposed boarding establishment at its future school.
The Ministry of Education has announced it bought an eight hectare block of land at Remarkables Park in Frankton for a new secondary school site to be built in the near future.
The school board of trustees and Remarkables Park developer Alastair Porter are keen to work together on building a boarding facility to attract prospective students from all over the country – and retain locals.
“Instead of kids leaving town to go boarding, there could be the potential to have kids boarding here,” Porter says.
No specific plans have been drawn up but both parties believe a boarding facility will work well with Remarkables Park’s planned performing arts facility and extra tertiary education.
Board member Greg Turner adds: “There are enormous public facilities planned at Remarkables Park that will add to the state-of-the-art facilities at the new school. It clearly suggests there’s an opportunity for the high school to look into an area where it hasn’t in the past, in terms of boarding.”
The school board is actively trying to retain dozens of local kids who leave for expensive private boarding schools.
“If we had a net gain rather than a net loss of students that has a big economic impact on the whole town,” Turner says.
The school land, south of Queenstown Airport, includes Porter’s farm homestead and is already zoned for education so doesn’t need to go through lengthy planning processes.
Wakatipu High, relocating from its cramped Queenstown site in Fryer Street, will begin building as soon as the ministry hands over the money, Turner says.
That may not be for a while – there are suggestions the school won’t be ready till 2017, but Turner says it’s not confirmed.
Porter won’t be drawn on what the MoE paid for the land but says “they got a good deal”.
It is not all about the quality of the education that our kids go to boarding school for. My two boys both went to Otago Boys HS not to improve their education but for the opportunity to enhance their sporting prowess. Our boys are all grown up now and are in very good jobs even though they were very average students (by their own admission). Boarding Schools place a lot more emphasis on sports and encourage participation in team sports in particular. Don't get me wrong reading, writing and mathematics are hugely important but they are not the be all and end all of becoming succesful. I know because I had two sons who were very ordinary when it came to academics but I could not be a more prouder father knowing that they have become very succesful in their chosen fields.
22 Jul 2012 03:05PMpatfam
High accademic standards have to come first. There seems to be far too much focus on the $ and what other schools are doing. No one will send their kids to a boarding school that doesnt first achieve where it counts. Like any business get the basics right first and then consider how you can grow. Outwardly this Board of Trustees seems to have overlooked what is most important. Boarding schools do have an added dimension but it is the quality of education that is the main reason we send our kids to out of town schools. Its not about being critical of Wakatip but there are better schools. As parents we strive to provide the best opportunities.
21 Jul 2012 10:28AMPeter F
Please be careful when commenting
Moran, your comment was edited solely because it was potentially defamatory of a particular teacher.
20 Jul 2012 01:24PMRyan
While I accept your point Patron it doesn't ring true for me. I see the Scene has edited my post to remove my criticism of the educational standards at WHS and one or two particualrly poor teachers, but leaving the line as "WHS is O'K" completely reverses the meaning of my original statement. The main reason local parents send their children to boarding schools is surely because of the better standard of education they'll receive. To suggest that those parents would choose to school their kids locally merely because WHS has a few boarders from Gore (or wherever) seems to be a silly arguement.
20 Jul 2012 01:19PMMoran
With respect, Moran you've missed the point completely. One of the reasons people send their kids out of town to board is so that they can go to an educational facility with a more diverse range of students from a wider catchment area. What appears to be being said here, is that children from here will be able to go to a boarding school, or a school with boarders, instead of having to go to Dunedin/Christchurch.
20 Jul 2012 09:46AMPatron
With respect, I feel Mr Porter has missed the point completely. The reason parents send their kids out of town to board is not because Wakatipu High doesn't offer that facility. It's because they get a far better education at more upmarket schools. WHS is O'K. I can't think of any Queenstown parents who'd consider their kids boarding just 5km down the road from their home.
19 Jul 2012 06:03PMMoran
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