BUILDER CHOSEN

CHRISTCHURCH company Southbase Construction has been engaged to build the new Wanaka South Primary School.

Establishment board chairman Ian Hall yesterday said while the new 400pupil school (capable of being expanded to 700 pupils) in the Three Parks subdivision would be Southbase’s first south of Christchurch, the company had extensive experience.

‘‘They’ve built three schools which have opened this year in Christchurch and a number before that.’’

The plans for the new school, due to open next year, [2020] will be revealed at a function on site, next to the Wanaka Recreation Centre, between 5pm and 7pm on March 14.

Mr Hall said the board had met regularly with Southbase, the Ministry of Education and the architects Stephenson and Turner.

Stephenson and Turner won several awards for their work on the upgrade of the Dunedin Law Courts building.

The board had visited schools designed and built by the same companies and Mr Hall said it had ‘‘a lot of input’’ into the detailed design over the past five or six months.

The new school would include what the ministry referred to as ‘‘modern learning environments’’ — larger open areas where large numbers of pupils are taught by a group of teachers.

‘‘A lot of parents are very familiar with a more traditional singleteacher classroom and there is some move away from that into shared learning spaces, but working with the architect we have arrived at a very good balance,’’ Mr Hall said.

Wanaka Primary and many other schools had shared learning spaces already, he said.

‘‘So we’re very comfortable with the design.

‘‘We’re very confident it will work well.’’

Mr Hall said principal Jodie Howard would be ‘‘looking for the sorts of teachers who are comfortable working in the design of the school that we will have’’.

According to consent documents, stage one of the new school will have 17 teaching spaces, an administration area and a hall for 400 pupils within four blocks.

Stage two, for another 300 pupils, would include 13 teaching spaces.

When fully operational, the school would have about 50 staff.

The plan includes parking for cars, cycles and scooters.