Pakuranga College

Pakuranga College is a co-educational secondary school in east Auckland, New Zealand. The school is named after the suburb it is located in, Pakuranga. The school emblem is the pegasus and the motto "Caelum Certe Patet".^[3]

The school takes pride in its cultural diversity and its high achievement in Academics, Sports and Leadership. The current principal is Michael Williams, as of 2009.

History

The school was built on part of an old dairy farm that was known for its swampy soil in winter. The school initially opened on the 7th of October in 1961 by the then Minister of Housing, R M Algie.^[4] The founding principal was Kenneth Rae with an initial roll of 312 students and 17 staff members.^[5]

Principals

In total, the school has seen a total 7 principals: Kenneth Rae was the head of the college till 1967, taken over by Ernest Rive. From 1978, Stan Seager was the principal. The school then saw leadership from Pamela Stone from 1987 to 2003. Bali Haque was principal during 2003 - 2006. Prior to being principal, Haque was formerly president of the Secondary Principal's Association and also was principal at Rosehill College.^[6] He then went on to be the Deputy Chief Executive of NZQA.^[7] After Haque, Heather McRae, who was Associate principal under Haque, became principal of 2006 to 2009. McRae left on a promotion to be principal of Diocesan School for Girls and was replaced by the current principal, Michael Williams from Aorere College.^[8]

Ribena

As part of a school science project in 2004 at Pakuranga College, two 14-year-old school girls (Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo) discovered that Ribena, a blackcurrant fruit juice drink sold in 100 ml ready-to-drink containers contained very little Vitamin C, contrary to advertising for the product. Approaches by the two teens to the company did not resolve the issue but the matter was publicized on national consumer affairs television show Fair Go and came to the attention of the Commerce Commission (a government funded 'consumer watch-dog'). The commission's testing found that Ribena contained no detectable vitamin C. On March 27, 2007, GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty in an Auckland District Court to 15 charges relating to misleading conduct, and was fined $217,000.^[9][10]

School buildings

Pakuranga College has traditionally named its blocks of classrooms after past principals and staff. This is evident in all the principals from Mr Rae to Ms Stone having classroom blocks named after them:

• Rae Block - a general purpose block, with a strong focus on the social sciences.
• Rive Block - a general purpose block, containing science classrooms, computer labs and the languages department.
• Seager Block - the mathematics block, containing all the mathematics offices.
• Pamela Stone Block - the English block.
• Jill Sweeny Block - the most recently built science block, containing most of the schools' science classrooms (Chemistry, Biology and Physics). The block is named after the former science teacher and head of department, Jill Sweeny, who contributed a lot to the science department.

There are a number of other buildings throughout the school, given generic names.

House System

The students of Pakuranga College are divided into six different houses named after New Zealand native trees. Each house is represented by a color and mascot. Although the students are not physically separated into these houses, it acts a system of administration.^[11] The only time students are in house groups on a daily basis is through 'tutor groups'. This is for pastoral support of students such as attendance and the daily notices of co-curricular activities.

Students also participate in school events in house groups. Such events include the school swimming sports, athletics day and other inter-house competitions.

Houses each contain 14 tutor groups and headed by two Deans of the house.

References