Mount Aspiring College

Mount Aspiring College is a state coeducational secondary school located in Wanaka, New Zealand. It was founded in 1986 after the division of Wanaka Area School into separate primary and secondary schools. The college, though normally a day school, operates a hostel beside the school grounds for 30 Year 13 students, who usually come to Mount Aspiring in order to attend its well-known Outdoor Pursuits programme.

The school has a reputation in New Zealand as a modern, dynamic institution. It is also noted for its rapid growth in its roll, usually attributed to the Outdoor Pursuits programme and the population explosion of Wanaka, and in its academic achievement.

Enrolment

Mount Aspiring College is naturally zoned by the school's isolation (the nearest alternative secondary school is Cromwell College, 55 kilometres away in Cromwell), therefore does not need to operate an enrolment scheme. The school's effective service area extends north to Makarora, east to Tarras and Queensberry, south to Cardrona, and west to the Southern Alps.^[3]

At the March 2012 Education Review Office (ERO) review of the school, the school had 677 students enrolled, including 29 international students. The school roll had a highly-skewed gender composition for a coeducational state school: 57% male and 43% female. The ethnic composition was 89% New Zealand European (Pākehā), 10% Māori, and 1% Other.^[4]

Principals

• 1989-1998: Mr. Michael (Mike) Allison
• 1998-2008:^[5] Mr. Maurice (Maurie) Jackways

• Wayne Bosley was Acting Principal 2007-2008

• 2008-: Mr. Wayne Bosley

In June 2007 Maurie Jackways went on leave to work as an advisor to Otago University for five months,^[6] later extended to a full year.^[7] Wayne Bosley, the Deputy Principal, served as the Acting Principal until August 2008.^[6] In the school newsletter of April 16, 2008, Maurie Jackways announced his resignation as Principal, effective July 18, 2008, and thus did not return to the job at the end of his leave period.^[5] On August 11, 2008, Board of Trustees chairman Grant Ruddenklau announced the unanimous appointment of Wayne Bosley as the new Principal.^[8] He took office on August 25.^[8] The Board later appointed Greg Thornton to replace him as Deputy Principal; he took up this position at the start of the 2009 school year.^[9]

School Houses

Mount Aspiring has four houses: Barker, Iron, Pisa and Roy. Each house represents a different mountain in the Wanaka area. The houses are each assigned a colour: Barker is green, Iron is red, Pisa is yellow and Roy is blue. The houses compete during the year to win the house shield. Examples of activities are Cross Country running, Skiing, Swimming, Singing competition, 40 Hour Famine, Athletics and Tug of War. Before 2002, when the roll grew too large, the school had three houses, Wilkin, Clutha and Hunter, named after local rivers. Prior to that, there were only two houses, East and West.

See also

• List of schools in New Zealand

References

External links

• School website
• Education Review Office (ERO) reports for Mount Aspiring College