About Us

Founded in 1894, Purua is one of the oldest historical schools in New Zealand.  We’re located just 30 minutes from downtown Whangarei, in the heart of Northland’s kiwi country. Purua is a full primary school with a roll of 28. We have two classrooms, one junior and one senior. Our school is part of the rural life in Purua and we have wonderful support from our community.

For such a little school, we have big ideas! We learn environmental science first-hand, by working with our local DOC office on the kiwi breeding programme.  We have a school veggie garden with a worm farm and tumbling composter, and this year we’re growing our own native plants from seed with the Waimarie Whitebait Connection.

We're very proud of our cutting-edge technology courses. Last year, students built and programmed their own robots, and this year they are consolidating their logical sequencing and computational skills through basic computer coding with Tynker interactive tutorials. 

Purua school has a thriving physical education programme.  In addition to weekly swimming lessons at the Whangarei Aquatic Centre, our children have been playing squash at the Kamo Rugby and Squash club, and this year they joined the Twilight Hockey teams in town.

Our arts curriculum really showcases our creativity.  Over the past few years, we've learned about weaving, stone carving and pottery. Last year we participated in the Kiwileles festival in Auckland, the largest mass ukulele orchestra in the world! This year, we are learning about the solar system through creating and painting the sun and planets, and the juniors are building a rocket ship to Mars!

If you’re thinking about living in the Purua area, feel free to pop in and visit.  We’d love to meet you!