The need for another school

in the area was a result of residential expansion in North West Christchurch in the late 1950s and 60s – a period when newly married people established homes and families in the area. At the time, the roll of schools such as Kendal were reaching the 1000 mark and so another school in the area to reduce numbers was needed.

Roydvale first opened on Wednesday, 1st February 1967

For term one of that year, the school was situated in the grounds of Kendal School while the buildings were completed at the present site. The opening roll was 120 pupils with Vivian Rowe the first pupil enrolled. The original staff of five was: Mr E.K. Robertshaw (Headmaster), Miss M Donahue (Infant Mistress), Miss Smith, Mrs Symes and Mr Taylor. The school was named after the Royds family who owned land in the area. The children and teachers moved to the present site in Term Two, 1967. The Minister of Education, A.E. Kinsella, officially opened the school on Thursday, 16th November, 1967.

The strong community spirit

which exists at Roydvale today, can be traced back to the beginning of the school’s history when sixty people turned up for the first PTA meeting. It was at this meeting that the school colours of bottle green and gold were chosen and it was decided that the first major project of the PTA would be the building of the swimming pool.

The 25th Jubilee Committee Chairperson, Alan Mayel, wrote in the Jubilee Handbook that the parents of the first children to attend Roydvale expected the school to provide

“quality education which would lay the foundation of knowledge, a respect for authority and an environment for young personalities to grow and develop.”

The statement below regarding life in Teesdale Street about five years before Roydvale opened, is testament to the changes in New Zealand society.

“When we moved into one of the first houses in Teesdale Street, the road ended at No. 60, was unsealed and had no street lights. We had Lake Bryndwr and Ashby’s digging out stones behind us and only a handful of houses between the airport and us. Burnside Road was just being developed into Memorial Avenue and Roydvale Avenue was still Woolridge Road.”

Vision and Values

As the result of continued consultation in 2014 with key stakeholders coupled with staff professional development and the Board engaging with an outside futurist educational facilitator in 2014, a clear vision and values has been retained, as the cornerstone underpinning the school. These values flow on from the school’s mission statement and are a clear statement of the overriding important aspects of what an education at Roydvale Primary School will involve.

All ideas were developed taking our Mission Statement, ‘Fostering a Future Generation’ into account. The vision reflects characteristics of what our whole school community would hope a child who leaves Roydvale after six years education would be like.

The four core values are what are we consider important for a successful individual to thrive in the future. While other values could be added, it was important to limit the values to a maximum of four key words that could be easily remembered by everyone, staff, children and parents at Roydvale and had real meaning as to what is deemed important at Roydvale.

The four vision statements chosen reflect our communities desire to see learning as an important aspect of the children’s school life as well as the children contributing and playing a role in the school, showing care and giving back.

In essence what we have endeavoured to do is ‘bottle’ the great culture, high standards and expectations that exist at Roydvale, so that we are able to clearly articulate what we value. By doing this parents will be able to see these behaviours as their children move through the school.