St. Andrew's College, Christchurch

Story

St. Andrew's College Christchurch, New Zealand is a private, co-educational school that enrolls from pre-school to secondary Year 13. It was founded in 1917 and it is the only independent, co-educational primary and secondary school in New Zealand's South Island. Although now a fully co-educational school, it was formerly an all-boys school. It became fully co-educational in 2001. The current rector of St Andrew's College, known as StAC, is Christine Leighton.HistorySt Andrew’s College was founded by Rev. Alexander Thomas Thompson in 1917 in the Scottish Presbyterian tradition of the Christian faith.The school began in a humble fashion with 19 boys and four teachers, driven by the determination of the Reverend Thompson, whose driving ambition was to ‘educate the sons of the Presbyterian and Scottish community of Canterbury.’StAC had three boarding houses for the 165 boarders of years 9 to 13: MacGibbon (years 9 to 11) and Rutherford (years 11 to 13) for boys, and Thompson (years 9 to 13) for girls. Boarding facilities were damaged in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake; as a result, the boarders have lived in local motels until the new boarding houses were opened at the start of 2013. Thompson and Rutherford houses have been demolished and replaced with brand new state of art boarding facilities while McGibbon House has been refurbished and strengthened. Boarding used to be available for year 7 and 8 students, but is no longer provided. St Andrew's College has four houses: Rutherford, MacGibbon, Thompson and Erwin.On 31 October 2008, the students and teachers of St Andrew's College set a world record for the largest school mass dance with a recital of the YMCA.In 2017, St Andrew's College celebrated its 100th year anniversary.