Ormiston Senior College will take 18 new classrooms under the $160 million school property package the Government announced on 11 June, the only East Auckland school named in the release.
“This latest investment brings the number of funded additional classrooms and learning spaces to 1373 nationwide since I first became Minister,” Education Minister Erica Stanford said.
The Flat Bush school’s 18 rooms are the joint-largest single allocation in the package, level with Mt Albert Grammar School and Waitakere College and ahead of every other school in the country.
“This means more capacity in areas where families are choosing to live,” Stanford said of the Auckland spending.
She set the package against the state of school property when she took the portfolio.
“When I first became Minister I inherited a school property system that was bordering on a crisis, with cost blowouts, maintenance delays that had resulted in mushroom growing on the walls of some classrooms,” she said.
“Our Government has turned around the delivery of school property.”
“I have been very clear that this government is laser focused on delivering value for money.”
“That is why we are supplementing this investment with up to $7 million of existing Ministry funding to deliver approximately 17 of these classrooms announced today as refurbished relocatable classrooms.”
“This approach means every dollar tipped in from Budget 26 can go further.”
“I am happy to announce that we are investing $25 million to deliver 26 learning support classrooms across the upper North Island, so students with additional needs have the spaces and support they require to succeed,” Stanford said.
“We are getting the basics right.”
“That means making sure schools are in the right place, have the capacity they need and are in good condition to serve their communities.”
The Ormiston work is listed in the release as Stage 3b.
Project manager RDT Pacific describes Stage 3 as a three-storey, 18-classroom block along the school’s Ormiston Road frontage, including a music room and a drama room with direct access to outdoor learning spaces.
It is to be built by Watts and Hughes Construction under a design and build contract, using a Ministry of Education repeatable design, and linked to the existing buildings by external stairs and an enclosed bridge.
Jasmax designed both that stage and the Stage 2 administration and teaching block already under construction, which adds 14 teaching spaces, four of them a satellite unit for Mt Richmond Specialist School.
RDT Pacific puts the current roll at more than 1400 and attributes the pressure to significant residential growth around the school.
Across the wider package, Auckland school expansions account for 42 classrooms and English medium roll growth for another 115.
Design funding is also set aside for a new secondary school at Kumeu.
Six schools separately receive redevelopment money for ageing property, none of them in East Auckland.
The Ministry has not published a construction start or completion date for Stage 3b.
