Rebuilding
our school.
Welcome to the Paparoa Street School rebuild update page. We are delighted to announce that our school rebuild and redevelopment is now on the horizon. We are one of the last Christchurch schools to enter the Christchurch Schools Rebuild Project (CSR) post earthquake.
Over the coming weeks and months we want to ensure our school community is kept fully informed of the full redevelopment process and this is the place for you to come to get all of that information.
We will regularly update these pages with both the history of the rebuild process, where we are up to currently and what will be happening next.
This is an exciting time for the school community and the children are highly engaged in all of the learning that goes with this big project. Keep coming back to find out what is happening next and what opportunities there are for you to be involved in this development.
Core principles.
In 2018 the Board of Trustees began the formal process of engagement with Paparoa Streets involvement in the Christchurch Schools Rebuild.
The expectation of the Ministry of Education was for the school to develop an Education Brief that would clearly outline the kind of learning that happens at our school and how building design could support this. In developing this brief the Board of Trustees consulted with the school community in our enormously successful Festival of the Future. This event was a key element of input into our education brief. This was also supported by a number of design thinking workshops held with Board, PTA, Staff and students.
“Thank you again for your Education Brief. We would like to extend our congratulations and commendations to the team who wrote the brief. The brief has high expectations of an inclusive, future focussed delivery of curriculum. The thinking around your spaces is very clear. We were impressed how Māori values were woven through the brief.” (Michaela Allen MOE)
Some of the key considerations for learning and curriculum delivery included in the brief are described below.
Key considerations for learning and curriculum delivery.
Wellbeing/ Belonging
Wherever I lay my hat that’s my home. All community members feel welcome and at home.
Student agency
Coming to school is exciting, personalized and something I am accountable for as opposed to being a place to fill in my day.
Learning as Inquiry
Learning is about using skills to solve problems that are meaningful to me my community and the world I live in or will live in in the future.
Learning happens everywhere
Learning is not confined to supervised classrooms. There is flow and connection to the immediate outdoors and the world beyond school.
Whanau based space design
Any space I enter in my village will accommodate me no matter my age and size
Culturally sustainable
My school tells the story of my history as a New Zealander and my cultural is represented and easily identifiable through artefacts within my environment
Considerations in the overall school design.
The overall school design and configuration needs to make us feel we are all connected and on the same mission, not engaged in separate or isolated work.
Campus Connection with the natural environment
Our school opens out across the playing fields to our local reserve. This gives us a strong connection to the natural environment and allows a rural feel in a strongly urban setting. Transparency to this open area from indoor learning spaces is important.
Kāinga
Our vertically grouped learning kāinga are the backbone of our school organisation. The configuration of our school must support this organisation and allow it to grow over time. Our kāinga extend out as the skeleton structure from the heart of our school and our configuration should represent this strongly.
Relationships & Community
Spaces need to lend themselves to interactions between parents, teachers and students. They must facilitate and provoke informal and formal conversations, before and after school. Overall school design needs to make us feel we are all connected, on the same mission and not engaged in separate work.
Use of whole site
The whole site is to be considered a learning space, not simply the buildings.
Heart
There is an opportunity to develop our Paparoa Street entrance as the heart of the school; a place of welcome and comfort.
Entrances to build connections
The school entrances need to funnel people to our social connection areas and give them and us a clear sense of having arrived at school.
Vehicles and pedestrians at Paparoa Street and Tomes Road
More separation of vehicle and pedestrian movements is needed at both of these entrances.
Attention to the aesthetic
Every opportunity must be taken to expose our learners to objects of awe and wonder, and provocations for inquiry.
Outdoor areas
To allow for flexibility of learning. Visibility from indoors, and not too close to other learning spaces that may need quiet learning.
Collaboration
2-3 teachers are responsible for knowing all learners and their learning needs and delivering learning experiences through a variety of collaborative models.
Purposeful learning settings
Learning spaces need to be well-defined. Not just the spaces themselves, but the settings within each space. Spaces need to reflect and be responsive to learning activity that is student-centred and inspirational.
Connectedness
Learning spaces must build connectedness between those inside each kāinga. More so than between kāinga.
Do you have questions?
Email
office@paparoastreet.school.nz
Phone
+64 3 352 8160
Location
120 Paparoa Street
Christchurch, 8053, New Zealand