Sumner School for the Deaf

Story

Van Asch Deaf Education Centre is located in Truro Street, Sumner, Christchurch, New Zealand. It is a special school for deaf children, accepting both day and residential pupils, as well being as a resource centre providing services and support for parents, mainstream students and their teachers in the South Island and the Lower North Island (south of Taupo).The school was founded in 1880. Formerly called the Sumner Deaf and Dumb Institution, Sumner Institution for Deaf-Mutes and Sumner School for the Deaf, the school was renamed in its centenary year as van Asch College in honour of its first Principal, Gerrit van Asch. It is now known as the van Asch Deaf Education Centre.HistoryWilliam Rolleston, when he represented the electorate in 1878, proposed a school for deaf children. The government agreed to open a state school for the deaf in Christchurch, and the Sumner Deaf and Dumb Institution opened in 1880.In 1904, an Act of Parliament forced parents to enrol their deaf children at the college (then known as the Sumner Institute).In 1958, the Boy's House was burnt down in the early hours of the morning.The old main building was centred near the hills and Evans Pass.Oralist beginningsUp until the late 1970s, the philosophy of the school was to prevent the students from using sign language (now New Zealand's third official language). Children were taught exclusively via oral methods, forcing them to learn to lipread and speak, with punishments being given for use of sign language.