Bell tolls for NZ’S oldest classrooms
Generations of school children have whispered of the ghostly nun that rings the Woodville School junior block bell, but now the bell may be tolling for New Zealand’s oldest classrooms.
The building has been part of Woodville School since 1879, two years after the school opened with a roll of 30 children, and it is the only classroom of that era still in use today.
But the substantial costs to ensure the venerable classroom is fit-for-purpose, and necessary earthquake strengthening work, have called its future into question.
Woodville School Board of Trustees chairman Grant Squires said the Ministry of Education was still considering what to do, but had indicated during discussions on the school’s 10-year property plan it thought the money would be better spent upgrading the rest of the school buildings.
The community has been up in arms since a school newsletter mentioned potential plans to fence off the junior block and put it up for sale, with members of the Woodville Community News Facebook group discussing potential protests and plans to save the building.
The Ministry’s head of eduction infrastructure service, Kim Shannon, said any decision would take the block’s heritage status into consideration, and government policy required all alternative options had to be fully explored with public consultation before selling or moving the building.
A date would be set for the consultations, after the property plan was finished.
Annette Nepe said she hoped the community would get the chance to fundraise, and potentially buy the historic classrooms, to keep them around in recognizable form. ‘‘It’s a part of us. It’s our school, our community and our history.’’
Nepe had many fond memories of the junior block, particularly of scaring herself and her classmates with stories of the Junior Block Nun. The ghost story was passed from kid to kid, since long before Nepe started at Woodville School in 1978, she said.
The nun haunted the junior block, where there was an old bell that never rang with the others.
The story goes, the reason it was never used was because a young nun who worked at the school in the old days fell and broke her neck climbing up a ladder to ring it – some kids said her blood still stained the bell.
‘‘So when it did go off, everybody’s eyes got 20 times bigger, and kids started whispering ‘it’s the nun’.’’
Nepe said really, the old bell wasn’t connected to the same system as the other bells, and it was only rung for big assemblies or school reunions – but that was so rare many kids didn’t connect the dots.
Woodville Districts’ Vision will discuss formally organising a community response to the school’s situation.