Taradale High School

Story

Taradale High School , is a co-educational secondary school situated in the town of Taradale in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Taradale High School accommodates from years 9-13. The school currently has an attendance role of approximately 1060 students as of February 2011.FacilitiesThe school is structurally a "Nelson 2H" school, like most New Zealand secondary schools built in the 1960s. The Nelson 2H is distinguished by its two-storey H-shaped classroom blocks, with stairwells at each end of the block and a large ground floor toilet and cloak area on one side. Taradale has two Nelson 2H classroom blocks - A and B blocks.The school is well resourced with modern facilities which include a learning support centre, a gymnasium, a music and drama suite, four computer suites, an additional suite of computers and VLN facilities in the library, an extensive technology complex and an attractive environment with extensive sports grounds. A new food technology/hospitality facility was commissioned in 2006 and has since been completed along with a dance studio as part of a major gymnasium refit. In 2017, a new state of the art science block has been built.School achievements and historyThe school opened on 3 February 1970, although some of the buildings were not yet complete or painted, and the playing fields were bare earth with stones and rocks. The science class had no equipment, and the library was short of books. The opening ceremony was not held until 17 July 1970, and the Minister of Education, Brian Talboys, was unable to attend and a replacement speaker was hastily organised. Of the original ten staff members, four left during the first year. Despite these problems, the school presented a concert involving every class at the end of the second term, and a basketball marathon set an endurance record for the Guinness Book of Records. The school magazine, then called Teamhar Leabhar (Gaelic for The Book of Tara), published its first issue.