 
On 25th January 1896, attempts were made to provide education for the children of the Te Puna district between the Wairoa and Waipapa rivers. Land was donated by My B G Armstrong for a school to be built at Hakao( today Tanglewood Orchard) on the old Tauranga to Waihi Road. A committee was elected to run the school - Thomas Lochhead (Chairman), W H Smith, T M Thompson, John Munro and B G Armstrong and Miss M J Johnston was appointed teacher. By 1898, there were 45 pupils.
Overcrowding and distance accounted for absenteeism and truancy and a petition was forwarded to the Education Board to have the school moved to a more central site. This request was refused and as a protest, parents kept their children away and only 11 students were attending Hakao.During this time of boycott, the 31 children attended a school set up in the Borell home with local adults appointed as teachers.
Eventually the Education Board acceded to the request and decided to move the Hakao building to the present site on land donated by Mrs Roha Borell. Here a temporary building had been erected 24 x 12 ft and was housing 40 children.
The 3 acre site was covered in teatree and scrub and horse drawn machinery and manual labour was needed to level and clear this. It was a mammoth task to move such a large building. Banks on the roadsides had to be excavated and the school was placed on skids and using timber jacks and rollers it was hauled by horses owned by Cotton Murray and Poutaua Tangitu. A laborious progress with physical labour was provided by the menfolk of the district - Borells, Bidois, Faulkners, Taraus and Europeans working together and using all their building skills, pioneer improvisation and determination. Eventually, the building was resited and ready for occupation for the first term in 1905 with H O Cooney as headmaster.
Over time, population growth has necessitated enlargement - in 1941
the roll was 99 with a staff of three teachers; In 1953 additional land was purchased from the Borell estate to bring the total area to 5 acres to accommodate the 162 children. By 1972 there were 200 pupils. Today with 18 classrooms, the roll is...
|