An east Auckland school is to receive 18 new classrooms including associated administration spaces and a staffroom extension as part of the coalition Government’s $100 million investment in the sector.

Education Minister Erica Stanford says the Government is ensuring hundreds more students benefit from safe, warm and dry learning areas by delivering a new school and more classrooms into communities that need them most.

“Through our decisive action to improve efficiency and performance in school property delivery, $100 million has been freed up for areas across the country that have growing school rolls.

“With a 35 per cent increase in the number of standardised and repeatable designs, we have reduced the price per classroom by 28 per cent.

“We can now provide an additional 67 teaching spaces in Auckland and in the Kaupapa Māori Education network to help meet growing demand.”

The announcement includes an 18-classroom expansion for Ormiston Senior College in east Auckland, the planned construction of a 600-pupil primary school in Massey, West Auckland, and a two-storey block of 10 new classrooms at Scott Point School in Hobsonville.

“Detailed planning for all projects is under way, with construction set to begin soon after,” Stanford says.

“Our priority is to get these projects delivered as quickly and efficiently as possible so students, teachers and communities benefit sooner.

“This reinvestment has been made possible by accelerating and improving the cost-effectiveness of new builds using standard designs and offsite manufacturing.

“We want to be responsive to changing student numbers while ensuring our solutions represent the best value for money.”

The Times reported last year that Ormiston Senior College’s roll is growing so fast that it had to place more classrooms onto its sports field to accommodate its pupils.

Principal Tim Botting said the school’s located in one of the fastest growing areas in the country.

“The Ormiston community is growing at a really high rate, there’s new subdivisions popping up all the time, and those houses get filled with people.

“There’s a lot of young families moving in and a bit of a bubble coming through from the [nearby] primary school, which is one of the largest in the country at 1200 students.”

Botting said that in 2022 the Ministry of Education (MoE) expected the school to grow to potentially 3000 pupils.

That would give it the highest number of senior college pupils in New Zealand.

The school doesn’t take out-of-zone pupils, as its priority is serving its own community first.

It’s had plans for the last three years to construct a new block which has been “slightly delayed”, Botting said.

“Our stage-one has been approved and building will start at the end of this year [in 2024].

“That block has two new science labs and a new technology block, adding on to our existing block, as well as eight classroom spaces.

“That will be really useful and helpful for us.

“The issue was we’re currently at 1400 students and that new build brings us to the capacity of 1365.

“At the time of the build being finished, which is projected to be the start of 2026, we’ll have about 1700 students on-site.

“In the interim, the ministry has granted us some short-term roll-growth buildings.

“They’ll be on our field for now because we have quite a small footprint and any area that’s not the field is likely to be built on in the next five to 10 years.”

The classrooms were to be on the school’s field for at least five years, Botting said.

The school had also made other changes to accommodate its pupils.

“We’ve given up some of our circulation space. Some of the café, the library space, and some of our larger hall areas have been converted into spaces that can be taught in.

“We’ve had to do a little bit of moving and shifting.”