School pool to reopen after a decade

Pupils at Manurewa’s Homai School will get experience in and around water from a young age, thanks to the work of 22 teenagers.

Prefects from Kristin School on the North Shore deliver a community project every year and deputy head girl Jessica Tucker says this year the prefects wanted to address water safety. So they found Homai School, where the pool has been empty for a decade.

‘‘There had been a lot of media coverage around increasing drowning rates and we wanted to work around kids and water safety,’’ Tucker says. ’’It’s taking advantage of the fact we’re in a very fortunate position and using that to help out other people.’’

Between a quiz night fundraiser in April and a mufti day, the group raised more than $40,000 for the project.

Deputy head boy Declan Marshall says the group contacted Homai School and formed a relationship with the principal.

‘‘We talked about what we were looking at doing and what they wanted us to do,’’ Marshall says.

With the money and some elbow grease, the 22 prefects have fixed a broken filtration system, revamped the changing rooms, weeded and painted and are waiting on warmer weather to paint and installing heating.

They aim to revisit the school to open the pool on December 1.

Homai School principal Rosina Wikaira says the project is amazing.

‘‘They [the prefects] are a god- fill the pool before a cover and solar send to our little school all the way in south Auckland,’’ Wikaira says.

‘‘I’m really big on aqua education and ensuring our children from as young as 2 or 3, because we have a childcare too, have the opportunity to learn how to swim and be safe around water.’’

Wikaira says the school has been trying to get the pool up and running for a while and it has been exciting seeing it transform.

Schools must pay for pool maintenance and repairs out of their own pocket and the Ministry of Education gives the same amount of operational funding to schools whether they have a pool or not. There is no ministry funding for building or replacing a school pool and a maintenance upgrade is generally a discretionary project with low priority.

More than 150 school pools in New Zealand have closed in the past six years.