James Hargest College (Māori: Te Kura o Hēmi Hakena)[5] is a large school of 1,882 students (as of 2023),[6] in Invercargill, New Zealand. The school caters for students from year 7–13.
The school is divided into two campuses, known as James Hargest Junior Campus (Year 7–8) and James Hargest Senior Campus (Year 9–13). The campuses are at opposite ends of Layard Street and are separated by about a 20-minute walk (1.5km).
James Hargest College is named after Brigadier-General James Hargest.
Junior campus
James Hargest College's Junior Campus was formerly known as Rosedale Intermediate School until it became part of the former James Hargest High School to make James Hargest College as part of the Ministry of Education review of schools in 2004. Other intermediate schools in the city merged with the newly formed James Hargest Junior Campus, increasing the school's roll and stretching resources. Because of this, a new technology block was built, and several new classrooms have been built since the merge. There are 21 homeroom classrooms.
The subjects in the New Technology Block (known as the Atrium) include Science, Art, Woodwork (known as Hard Materials), Foods & Fabrics technology, and an ICT & Media Suite.
Senior campus
The Senior Campus covers Years 9–13, and as of 1 July 2020 had 1271 enrolled students.[7]
The school has multiple blocks, which are used for different purposes:
A Block – Administration Block. Contains Main Office, Hall, Student Administration, Staffroom, Deans and Associate/Deputy Principals Offices.
This block was badly damaged by a fire on 3 January 2013 by Arson after undergoing a refurbishment which resulted in the block being torn down and completely rebuilt, which was completed April 2014. During this period of rebuilding, subjects such Digital Technologies were taught in other classrooms around the school, and Food Technology classes were bussed down to the Junior Campus to have lessons.
E Block – E1-E5 is Mathematics and Theory Subjects (PE & Health Theory). E6-E7 is Science and Horticulture (2x Science Laboratories) and E8-E15 is English.
G Block – Gyms 1–3 are all located and are used for teaching physical education, as well as sports at lunchtime. Gym 3 is the largest gym of them all, used for large events such as the end of Year Prize Givings. An upstairs gallery is located in the Gym allowing students to sit upstairs and watch sports at lunchtime.
Currently, most of P Block is under reconstruction, with the previous prefabs now sitting on the grass patch in front of the former block.
The school also has a $2.2 million library, which officially opened on the 10th of March 2004 by Christine French and Murray Frost that also includes the Guidance and Careers Centre, as well as a Library, Reading Room and Library Classroom. The library's classroom has desks and an interactive whiteboard, as well as the reading room where students can browse the library's collection of magazines, newspapers and many books.
Hargest Centre
The Hargest Centre is a large building at the Senior Campus. The large gymnasium viewing gallery is popular with students who often go there to watch interclass sports at lunch break. There is a cafeteria at the centre, where students can purchase their lunch, and there are tables for the Senior students (years 11, 12 and 13) to eat indoors. It was opened on the 3rd of June 1994 by Brian McKechnie.
C Block Fire
During the early hours of Thursday 3 January 2013, the C Block was badly damaged by a deliberately lit fire.[8] The block was undergoing major renovations at the time. Fortunately, most of the equipment in the block, such as computers and servers, had been removed months prior to the fire. On 15 January 2013, it was revealed that the fire was deliberately lit by two ex-students of the school. They were sentenced to 3 years, 4 months jail and 3 years, 6 months jail respectively.[9]
Students can partake in a very wide variety of sports to represent the school, and there are often notices for tryouts in provincial sports teams.
Everyone at Hargest is placed into a school house, which are used for form classes at the Senior Campus. These are Menzies (green), Watson (blue), Thompson (red) and Hamilton (yellow). Near the beginning of each school year, the four houses compete for points at an athletics competition at Surrey Park Athletics Park, next to Stadium Southland. All Junior Campus students participate, and Senior Campus students get to choose whether to participate.
Leadership
The school employs a leadership system (known as the "senior leadership team" or "SLT"), which includes the Associate and Deputy principals along with the principal:[10]
Principal: Mike Newell
Associate Principal: Caroline Raynes
Associate Principal (Junior Campus): Kate Webster
Deputy Principal: Anna McDowall
Deputy Principal: Bryan Forde
Deputy Principal (Junior Campus): Kristine Simpson
Assistant Principal: Paul Redmond (former Hamilton house dean)
Students are preferred to go to the Deputies or Associate principal before escalating a problem to the principal.
Principals
On 24 August 2009, Paul O'Connor, who had been the principal since 1993, announced his resignation from the role due to retirement. He remained principal until the end of 2009.[11] On 5 November 2009, Andy Wood was announced as Paul O'Connor's successor in the role. Wood was principal of Central Southland College in the nearby town Winton. Wood was also deputy principal of the college from 1982 to 2003. He began in the role in the first term of 2010. In November 2019, Mike Newell was announced as the new principal of the school. He started at the beginning of Term 2, 2020.[12]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
