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Leigh School will open two new classrooms this month, replacing rotting prefab classrooms, which had been on site since the early 1990s.
The $400,000 upgrade was first discussed with the Ministry of Education in 2014, but due to a number of other school projects underway, work didn’t start until mid-2015.
The rooms will contain modern technology and furnishings, and cater for students from Years 2 to 6.
Leigh School spokesperson Melissa Crockett-Joyoue says the school chose to wait for new classrooms that would be customised to their needs, rather than use prefab rooms from another school.
“We used the waiting time we had to plan what the new spaces would look like and how they would operate as classrooms,” Melissa says.
The Ministry has funded the entire cost of the rooms, but the school is planning a number of working bees to meet the landscaping costs.
Principal Julie Turner says teachers and students are both looking forward to moving into the new rooms.
“They will free up space so we can refurbish the library and transform the senior classroom into a resource room,” Melissa says.
She says the challenges of the new build were assembling the six parts correctly, as they came in reverse order, and transporting them over the one-way bridge in Whangateau.
