Pouring better-off funding into Ōtorohanga College is paying huge dividends, principal Lyndsay Kurth says.
Otorohanga College School leaders: From left, back row: Callum Raine (Eveleigh House leader), Cullen Fagan and Luke Coles (head students), Takarei Bidois (Hotson House leader); front row: Marian Vibar (Brown House leader), Stoffel Wilken (deputy principal), Lyndsay Kurth (principal), Vanessa Te Huia (deputy principal), Caiza Te Kanawa (Kedgley House leader).
Ōtorohanga College received $1.64m of the first tranche of better-off funding allocated via the Ōtorohanga District Council as part of the previous government’s Three Waters inducement.
Lyndsay Kurth
The college has spent $641,143 so far and it’s paying dividends in the effect on the students, Kurth said.
“Prior to the better-off funding our food room was for want of a better word, disastrous.
The better off funding provided 12 brand new ovens, a mobile barista machine and a fully kitted out food room.
“We introduced a module whereby the kids get to tutu with cars and motorbikes. And for some of our kids that makes their day,” Kurth said.
“They are not in English, they are not in maths, they are not in science. They are pulling apart a car and rebuilding parts of it.
A new gym has taken over a balcony area in the hall. The photography room is now fully kitted out with new cameras and computers on wheels enable students to go into any classroom and “hook into” a device.
Otorohanga College school sign.
“If you are a teacher and you go into a classroom and the technology doesn’t work, or you don’t have the resourcing, it makes your job even harder. What we have got now works.”
Also planned is an expansion of agriculture and horticulture. Kurth said the intention is to demolish the college C Block, re-purpose and move a former boarding hostel building, and fully kit it out as an ag and hort centre.
Otorohanga College
