Queenstown’s booming  high school will get 12 new classrooms — and money has been set aside for a second school in the resort, the government says.

A new two-storey building at Wakatipu High School will house four classrooms for food technology and arts alongside four general teaching spaces.

A separate building will have four hard technology and automotive engineering classrooms, Education Minister Erica Stanford and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said.

Construction would start in the first half of 2027, with the classrooms opening by mid-2028.

“Queenstown has experienced strong and sustained growth over the last decade, placing increasing pressure on local schooling capacity, and we needed to take action.”

The expansion would support growth while planning continued for a future second Queenstown secondary school.

Principal Oded Nathan told Allied Media earlier this year new classrooms were required to lift the school’s capacity to 2000 due to rising student numbers.

The school had existing capacity for 1625 students, and it started this year with 1528. However, 24 of those were international students, which were not counted by the ministry.

There were 371 year 9 students who started this year — "the biggest cohort we’ve ever had" — while another 52 enrolments had been received across years 10 to 13, Mr Nathan said.

The school’s leaders have been signalling it needs to expand for the past two years.