OTUMOETAI PRIMARY SCHOOL

OTUMOETAI PRIMARY SCHOOL

The existence of a public school began in the late 1800's. The main date of an actual school building 1898. Though it was operating as a school from 1895. It took nearly 20 years for the main lobbyist Mr Brabant to persuade the then-local Borough Council and the Government of a desperate need for a local school.

The most interesting detail about the school is that the families who sent their children to the school were

the owners of Otumoetai Land, i.e. Farms and Orchards and the Worker's Families who lived and worked on the land surrounding area of the School. The need for private tuition or difficult attendance for children at Tauranga Primary some 12 miles away or considerably further finally ended.

The Roads were named after the land owners - to name a few:

• Darraghs Road
• Pillans Road
• Levers Road
• Milton Road
• Hinewa Road
• Ngatai Road

and later:

• Rushton Avenue
• Tollemarch Place
• Jefferson Place
• Tilby Drive
• Maungawhare Place

Of course, there are now many other names associated with Otumoetai Land from the many subdivisions in this explosive populated area and such families are still associated with this primary school which was the forerunner all schools in Otumoetai.

In 2015 this small 2 roomed Historic Building, Otumoetai Primary, was removed from its original leased then donated land, where it was built. The Corner of Otumoetai Road and Sherwood Street (another well-known local family land, Road). Many Pupils who shared their school days with this small iconic school building, voiced their strong desire for the building to remain. It could have been opened to the Public as a Museum with the many artefacts that lie locked out of sight slowly deteriorating.

Otumoetai School History still is and always will be of great interest, now all we can do is write about it in the hope that information of this fast expanding very interesting part of the Bay Of Plenty will be read.