Te Raekura Redcliffs School – our journey following the earthquakes.
Redcliffs School prior to Feb 22nd 2011 was a thriving primary school with a fantastic community spirit and children who seized on all the opportunities they were offered. Little did we know how much we would need that community spirit in the years to follow.
During 2011 the powerful earthquakes which shook Christchurch had a significant impact on the operating of Redcliffs School. The cliffs surrounding us on two sides had major rock-fall which created a potentially hazardous environment on part of our school grounds.
To briefly summarise:
February 22, 2011 was a terrifying experience at Redcliffs School, with the epicentres of the earthquakes and aftershocks being so close by. Rock-fall, dust clouds and on-going tremors created a frightening atmosphere. Our children were all looked after on the front field until all parents could make it to collect them.
The school was closed for one month from 22 February while repairs and prevention works were undertaken. We lost the use of some buildings including the Hall. During this period the school opened at the local church hall for 3 hours every day so that the children could be together with their teachers and have a sense of familiarity and routine.
June 13, 2011 was in many ways a repeat of 22 February for us with two very strong aftershocks in quick succession causing more damage and rock-fall.
After June 13th it was decided that Redcliffs School could not re-open on site as the danger from further rock-fall was a potential risk. We then quickly relocated temporarily to site-share at Sumner School. Here we set up in one day in the Sumner School hall, old community hall and library. Our children and staff remarkably settled into normal routines with some community times together at the end of each day – singing, or doing aerobics together as a school. We even managed to get music lessons going again and have some fun sports days.
As the end of Term 2, 2011 approached it was clear that we were not going to be able to return to the Redcliffs site as quickly as all had first thought. Therefore the decision was made to relocate to van Asch Deaf Education Centre in Sumner, where there were available classrooms and adequate space for us to remain longer-term. Again we set up in one school day and the staff and parents worked all weekend so that our children had beautiful rooms to move into with their familiar things all around them. The community continually helped to make things happen for our children.
At the end of November 2011, it had become obvious that decisions and actions to repair, remediate and return to Redcliffs were still some time off. The Board of Trustees made the decision with the Ministry of Education that the school would stay at van Asch for all of 2012. This provided some certainty for the school community in planning for the short-term.
Again at the end of 2012 and then 2013, a lack of final geo-technical data prevented plans from being put in place to enable our return to Redcliffs. The Board was left with no choice but to agree to remain at van Asch into 2013 and 2014. During these years our staff worked tirelessly to make the best education opportunities available for our children. Our achievement results stayed consistently high and we achieved a 4-5 year ERO review. With very limited spaces we set up as many opportunities for learning as we could – productions still occurred and we made these happen down at Sumner School, sports events all got set up in a new way at our temporary location, kapa haka, choir, enrichment classes and even our beloved annual fair all got established in our home away from home. Our children and families continued to thrive. We appreciated our sense of community like never before
In 2014 the final geotechnical data became available and a rock-fall risk and remediation report was completed for our school site. An education report was then written for the Minister of Education, to make final decisions on the return of Redcliffs School to Redcliffs. We began to get very excited about the probability of returning home.
For 2015 we continued operating at van Asch Deaf Education Centre still awaiting the result of the education report being written to advise the Minister. In April the Minister of Education came to visit us to announce her decision. The Minister proposed closure of Redcliffs School. Her reason for proposed closure was due to the potential of future disruption to education. The BOT and almost 3000 individuals made submissions to the Ministry all stating how important it was for Redcliffs School to remain open. In November the Minister again met with the BOT and told them that her interim decision for Redcliffs School was closure. The BOT and whole community were extremely shocked and disappointed with this decision.
In 2016 the BoT’s final submission went to the Minister on 31st March and on July 7th the Minister announced that Redcliffs School would not be closing and that the submission had answered her concerns around disruption to education. She asked for further work to be done on investigating other sites in Redcliffs and an investigation to be done on the psychosocial effects on children if our school returned to its Main rd site. The Ministry led this investigation with some input from the Board. In November 2016 the Minister made the decision that Redcliffs School would move its location to Redcliffs Park across the road, subject to a landswap agreement with the Christchurch City Council.
In August 2017 the CCC approved the landswap of Redcliffs Park with Redcliffs School site and masterplanning for our new school on Redcliffs Park began.
By the start of the 2017, our school roll had declined by over 40%, due to a combination of:families moving away temporarily while homes are repaired and rebuilt; families who left the area permanently; families who have left Christchurch and/or NZ; and families who do not want their children to travel around to Sumner each day.
Since the decision for Redcliffs School to remain open was made, the roll has gradually increased, and we expect it to grow steadily as we move towards taking our school home to Redcliffs. There has been a lot of interest in our school after such a long journey, led by a very determined community who fought for what was right and for the return of Redcliffs School to Redcliffs.
Given the valuable cultural history of the new site, an extensive archeological process was undertaken, discovering a greater quantity of relevant material than that currently held by Canterbury Museum. All finds, including a moa, a dog, and many hāngi pits and cooking areas, are being catalogued and managed at the museum.
The design and consent progress progressed steadily, and on 22nd of June 2020 we starting operating from our beautiful new school. We remain grateful to the VADEC board and staff for accommodating us so generously until then.
We are enjoying being back in our community operating as the thriving school that we are. We look forward to sharing our school facilities with our community. The most important thing to our community is to have a school hall that can be used for all the different ways that we gather together as a group from watching small or full school performances in kapa haka, drama, choir, music groups, productions, through to community social gatherings and sports events. The one thing that got us through 9 years offsite was the ability to be able to gather as a community and we know that our Redcliffs community will continue to value this opportunity. Words will never express how many hurdles our community had to overcome and amount of communication and problem solving that has been done to return our school to its beloved community and our story will be one that our children will learn so much from in regards to building character and determination.