Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean made the announcement on behalf of Associate Minister for Education Nikki Kaye at Wanaka Primary School yesterday. The new classrooms would provide space for the school’s continued growth until the new school was built, she said.
The site evaluation process for the new school had been completed and approval had been given to begin negotiations to buy the land, Mrs Dean said.
The preferred site for the new primary school was next to the Queenstown Lakes District Council sports facility at the Three Parks site but further details were confidential at this time because of commercial sensitivity, Mrs Dean said.
The Government was aiming to have the new school ready by 2020-21 and the four new modular classrooms for Wanaka primary school built within a 12-month timeframe, she said.Wanaka Primary School principal Wendy Bamford said she was delighted with the news.
"We were on the verge of getting desperate, as we know we’ve got a lot of new entrants coming. And we’re still getting children enrolling at all levels of the school, so by the end of third term we were going to be needing extra classrooms," she said.
Wanaka Primary School’s roll has grown every year for the past five years and this year was at its highest in the school’s 30-year history, with 623 children in 24 classes.
"With so much development and people coming from overseas and around New Zealand to live in Wanaka, it’s great to know we’ll have the extra classrooms almost immediately to future-proof us until the new school is built," Mrs Bamford said.
Wanaka Primary School board of trustees chairman Andrew Howard said "it was a great result for the school as it would allow the board to plan proactively rather than scrambling to find classroom space as we grow."
Mrs Dean said yesterday’s announcement came on top of more than $36million in funding announced last June for school property in Central Otago, including $700,000 for two new classrooms at Mount Aspiring College in Wanaka, about $25million for Wakatipu High School to be relocated and up to $11million for the Arrowtown Primary School redevelopment.
