Ao Tawhiti

Story

Ao Tawhiti or Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery sometimes abbreviated to "ATUD", is a state area school in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was established by the merging of two separate Christchurch inner city schools; a primary school known as Discovery (or officially Discovery 1) and a secondary school named Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti (better known as Unlimited or UPT for short).The school is one of eleven schools running under the "Designated Special Character" criteria of the Education Act 1989.Students are given the flexibility to pick from a variety of interchangeable classes and subjects to design their own customized learning programme, including working on individual projects as an alternative to total classroom learning. They also have the option to learn subjects which are not traditionally taught in New Zealand secondary schools, such as philosophy, video game design, as well as DJ performance and music production.HistoryAo Tawhiti was formed in 2014, by the merger of two schools which were each established by the Learning Discovery Trust. Originally they existed as two separate entities, known as Discovery 1 (primary) and Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti (secondary).Early OriginsUnder the direction and leadership of John Clough, the Alpha Learning Programme explored innovative and progressive learning theory in education for two years from 1993 onwards. In late 1998 (following the creation of a trial 'Learning Lab' at Elmwood School) an application to construct a new school based on this education theory was lodged before the then Minister of Education Wyatt Creech. The Ministry acknowledged the special character and granted it a special character designation.