| 101 COMMUNITY Pāpāmoa College: Stead Construction 0800 DOBSONS 07 573 0065 dobsons.net.nz Refrigeration Electrical Air Conditioning Serving the Bay of Plenty for over 50+ years SCAN ME Proudly supporting Papamoa College Papamoa College • Commercial • Residential • Educational • Design & Build T T Sue Russell School expands to cope with growing roll Between 2021 and 2025, the school’s footprint doubled to 15000sqm. When Pāpāmoa College opened its doors in 2011, it’s likely no-one could foresee the rapid growth the area would experience. Initially built for a maximum roll of 1200, the school was soon bulging at the seams, so much so that the Ministry of Education was required to add more teaching and learning spaces in the form of modular, transportable classrooms. The school’s director of property and development, Nathan Rillstone, says the students, staff, and community have coped admirably with the additions to the campus, not only brought on by increased population, but also by a shift in teaching and learning style. “When the school was first built, it pioneered open-plan large teaching spaces for multiple classrooms of students and teachers to share,” says Nathan. “What was discovered through monitoring assessment outcomes was that this model was not delivering the standards the school wanted or expected, so we had to look carefully at what was needed in terms of physical spaces, especially for our NCEA-level students.” So, two factors – the burgeoning school roll and the desire to support better educational outcomes for students – have been uppermost in the minds of Pāpāmoa College’s board, senior leadership team and the Ministry of Education to shape the significant developments on the site. Between 2021 and 2025, the school’s footprint doubled to 15000sqm, a size deemed sufficient to cater for 2000 students. “We’ll hit 2000 by 2027/2028 at the rate we’re going. The Ministry initially gave us 12, single-cell modular classrooms to cope with the roll growth, but now we have our permanent spaces built, these are being uplifted over a period of time to be used in other schools.” Nathan says while open-plan works well for students in the Year 7 and 8 levels, for Years 9 to 13, it doesn’t provide the distraction-free environment needed for students to really focus and excel. “Three years ago, our NCEA pass rate for senior students was sitting around the mid 60%. We’ve seen that by putting the senior curriculum into single-cell classrooms for the most part, we have lifted our results from this figure to high 80s.” Pāpāmoa College is one of 36 schools nationwide to have been accepted into a Ministry of Education pilot scheme to receive targeted funding to wall-up some of its openplan areas, and Nathan says that by the end of this year, they expect at least one block will be transformed. Separate from this, an extensive capital works programme was enacted in 2021, with experienced school building contractors, Stead Construction, adding four, two-storey teaching blocks, including a purpose-built technology centre, administration block and wharenui. These major developments concluded in May 2025, and Nathan says while the school coped admirably with the building programme, given the experience and expertise Stead Construction brought to the projects, there was still a visible sigh of relief when the works were finished. Moving students around as spaces are changed is a bit like working with a giant jigsaw puzzle, he says. Many real benefits have come with all the development at the school, including dedicated pastoral and learning-support spaces. Nathan says what was especially pleasing was the capital works programme was delivered on time and within budget. Coping with all the changes, Nathan says, has tested one of the school’s values – resilience. “That’s what our teachers and students have had to show by being adaptive and flexible.”
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