Excitement as Oxford school rebuild begins four years after funding announcement

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Northern Outlook

From local democracy reporter David Hill:

Work is finally under way on Oxford Area School’s rebuild, more than four years after funding was first announced.

Excitement is building now the board of trustees has approved the detailed design of a new administration, library and science block and a new arts, drama and music block for the North Canterbury school.

As fences went up late last month, principal Mike Hart and the senior leadership team were busy moving out of the old administration building, ahead of planned demolition.

“The students are getting really excited. They’ve seen the 3-D renders of the new build and they’re saying ‘it looks really flash and modern’."

The site is set to be cleared by the end of January, before the new build begins.

Hart anticipated a 2024 opening for the new block.

While the $10 million funding announcement in September 2018 caught Hart completely by surprise, he admitted it had been a slow process to get to the building phase.

“It has ended up being more [than $10m] because of the increase in costs.

“It is funded through the ministry and at this point there is no additional funds required from the school.”

The T-shaped building will house offices, a library and community space, and specialist science, food technology and hospitality teaching spaces.


The school will continue with its space theme, in naming the new building Te Waka O Tamarēreti, which encapsulated significant constellations in the night sky including Orion and the Southern Cross.

“We already have the Orion constellation named in our school so we want to see how can get all of those constellations included in our new building,” Hart said.

The reception area will have LED lighting in the ceiling to represent constellations, while the walls will feature a purapura whetu (stars) pattern.

The middle school (years 4 to 8), which opened in 2017, was named Aotahi (Orion), with the different learning hubs named for the different stars.

Once the new block is complete, attention will turn to demolishing the old science block and building a new arts, music and drama block.



A courtyard will be left between the Te Waka O Tamarēreti block and the school’s observatory, which will make the observatory more of a central focus for the school.

“When we have open days we need to take groups over to the observatory, because they can’t see it, so this will make it more visible,” Hart said.

“It is still a strong and significant building within our school and it aligns really strongly with our connection to the night sky.”

The school has received professional development funding from the Ministry of Education and planned to engage Wellington science educators Haritina Mogosanu and Sam Leske next year to help integrate astronomy more into the curriculum, in a joint initiative with View Hill School.

The pair visited the school in September 2018, the same week the $10 million funding was announced, to offer a learning programme for Mars Week with Nasa scientists.