ST Albans School Description

Room for everyone in Chch schools
The Press
PHOTO: STACY SQUIRES

Booming business: St Albans School principal Bob Smith
with six new classrooms

	Te Whainga Whakahua Ki Hato Opani Kura, i roto i te whanaugatanga-a-rohe, he taiao hei putoha te matauranga, nga tautohito, me te whakaaro totika, hei kawenga mo ratou nga rangatahi i teni ao hurihuri.
	Mission St Albans School, in partnership with its community, provides a high quality learning environment which empowers its children to use the knowledge, skills and positive attitude acquired for them to be successful in life.

Comment from our Principal.....

"St Albans School is situated only a few kilometres from the centre of Christchurch in a suburb of the same name."

"The school has a total of seventeen classrooms which consist of a mixture of older style classrooms refurbished in recent years and six new classrooms. An architecturally designed library, computer suite and technology centre have been recent additions to the school. In 1998 we opened our new administration block which architecturally compliments the library in design. We are fortunate enough to have a dental clinic, community toy library and a classroom to house OSCAR (Out of School Care and Recreation). The large hall is well used both during and outside school times. A swimming pool is used by both the school and community during Summer."

"Each classroom is equipped with Macintosh computers. The library is fully computerised including multimedia computers with Internet and email access for the children. Other technology available includes:

video camera
sound system
digital camera
eyeball camera
audio conferencing equipment
children's fax"

"Strong community spirit is one of the things that characterises St Albans school. The blend of old and new in the classroom blocks, the large, tree endowed site and its secluded nature (there is no major road frontage) lend a special quality to the school. In addition the school is proud of its bilingual tradition. It is one of the few schools in the city where children who choose this option can achieve a high level of fluency in the Maori language. There are three bilingual classes supported by three full time Kaiako i te Reo (Teachers Of The Language). Small class sizes are a feature of other parts of the school also, in particular the New Entrant class, where the aim is to keep to less than 20 pupils."

"Education of the children of St Albans has been provided on this site since 1873. Oak trees planted then still stand in the school grounds. The school provides a unique blend of old and new buildings. St Albans has been a very large school, with over 1000 pupils in the early 1950s, and a small school with less than 200 pupils during the 1980s. At the end of 1999 the roll was over 450 and growing rapidly. The 125th Jubilee was celebrated during Easter 1998. A large number of former pupils and teachers found tremendous changes had taken place since they attended the school."