Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Christchurch co-location first in country
Marlborough’s new shared college campus is due to open two years after the first example of secondary schools’ co-location in New Zealand – Shirley Boys’ High School and Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch.
An architectural design for the Christchurch schools, to be located on 11.5 hectares at Queen Elizabeth II Park, was completed earlier this year, and the campus is expected to be open for term two in 2019.
The co-location of the two eastern Christchurch schools was announced by the Government in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes.
Catering for up to 2200 students, the Christchurch campus will feature an electronics lab, a 2-D and 3-D printing room, science labs, an indoor fitness centre, a shared library, sports fields with a 400-metre running track, an outdoor technology area, indoor gymnasiums, and a cafe and fully-equipped commercial teaching kitchen. The schools’ shared 750-seat performing arts centre and 100-seat theatre will also be open for community use.
Like the Marlborough model, both schools intend to operate separately – each with their own curriculum and staff – and students would spend most of their day in a single-sex environment, while allowing collaboration on specialist subjects and sharing of resources.
Avonside Girls’ High School Principal Sue Hume, says an indepth consultation process was undertaken with staff, students, the community and iwi, to develop the school’s vision for learning to underpin the design phase.
‘‘At the very start, when we were gifted this notion of colocation, none of us really knew what it meant,’’ says Sue.
‘‘So we started talking with our staff and also our parent community about what co-location might be. We also began working with our partner school to begin the process of teasing out the concept of co-location and established our guiding principles.’’
The schools also considered what was important about their history and culture, and undertook a curriculum review which included looking at diversity within the community, learning outcomes, leavers’ data, overseas future-focused education examples, and future employability.
Feedback from a workshop with staff and students on pedagogy and how that informs the spaces needed was passed on to prospective architects, Sue says, and a student teaching and learning council was established to survey student ideas.