BOT Update 27/09/2017

Block One Upgrade

All of the necessary documentation has now been supplied to the Ministry of Education regarding the refurbishment of Block One.  We have been through a rigorous tender process to appoint a builder for the work. We are very pleased to say that Cook Brothers have been awarded this project and we are looking forward to them starting work soon.  This is approximately a 12 week programme and we are expecting to have the classrooms ready to go for the new school year in 2018.

Senior Playground

We are so super excited to say that we now have all the necessary funds to get this work underway to build this much needed play area for our senior students!  

The BOT want to say a huge thank you and recognise the Ashgrove PTA for raising the vast majority of the funds for this significant play area.  We are very appreciate of all the hard work, effort and time it has taken to raise the necessary money for what will be an amazing space for our children.  

Below is the finalised design.  How good does that look!  We are hoping to have this work completed in December.

School Hall

As the school hall is a Ministry asset, they will be undertaking the project and work for re-cladding of the school hall.  Fortunately the BOT were able to choose the profile and the colour of the new cladding which has now been done and authorised by the Ministry.  The work for the cladding will be undertaken during the summer holidays, so that it has little impact on the children and the use of the hall.

Perimeter Fencing

During the term three holidays the fencing will be reinstated and gates will be installed by the Allenvale entry.  There will also be a new gate at the Seddon Street entrance.  The park boundary fence will be installed as well. This will ensure that all children will be safe and this will be the first time in the history of the school's existence that it will be fully fenced on all perimeters. All of this fencing work is being funded and completed through the Ministry of Education.

New Mahuri block now open, Senior Playground, Block One upgrade, School Hall recladding

Firstly, apologies that it has been sometime since we updated the blog site.

We had a change of members on the Ashgrove Board and unfortunately we did not have anyone available to write for this site.

Building Updates:

With the completion of the Mahuri Block the benefits of modern learning environment is apparent with collaborative learning and inquiry developing our students' skills to succeed, it is so wonderful to see this modern building being used by our children.

As you will be well aware - we now have our students in the lovely new Mahuri learning environment and they are joined by the Allenvale students and their purpose built facilities.

There are some photos of the opening (which was attending by the Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey and the Waimakiriri Mayor David Ayers), on our school website via the school photo's page, however below is the finished building:

Other exciting developments include the refurbishment of block one (rooms 10 to 13). Plans are currently being developed by the architect for stage one of the development and these will be approved by the BOT. We have however, started the tender process for finding a contractor to perform the refurbishment, Registrations of Interest should be expected within the month of June. Again this will be based on the modern learning environment and space that the Mahuri block have adapted:

The school hall is about to be reclad. There have been issues with the ingress of water into numerous points of the hall. As the school hall is the Ministry of Education's asset, they will be running this project with their preferred tenderer and the BoT and school management will be a part of the consultation process to ensure the smooth operation of the school is not effected. It will also need to be consented by the Council.

For the first time in its history, Ashgrove School is about to become fully fenced on all of its parameters. This will ensure the children are kept safe and also with the idea that large gates opening onto the park will still provide the access needed for emergency vehicles.

The PTA have worked so hard to fund raise over $40,000 for our new senior playground. We have also been successful with some recent grants which takes us to a total of $60,000. However, we still need a bit more to get the playground project started, but in the meantime, here are some draft plans of what it we could expect to see:

As you can see from the above, we have a lot of improvements for our school environment and we hope this will be done with minimal disruption to our children, staff and community.


Megan McNay - Ashgrove BoT

Check out the colours!

While much of the new building's interior and exterior will have a neutral colour scheme, there will be splashes of colour. These will tie in with the four Ashgrove house groups, each of which has a home mountain and a colour: Karetu (yellow), Richardson (red), Grey (green)  and Thomas (blue). The Allenvale School's satellite classes will have purple as the feature colour.

We are looking forward in the upcoming months to being able to start working on concepts for the landscaping and playground areas. We are hoping for great ideas and continued involvement from the community so as to provide the best physical environment possible for our learners. Later in the year we will look at putting together a consultative group with representatives from across the school to work on this project.

Mecca Hampton-James
Ashgrove BOT

 

                  

 

 
 
 

 

 

Welcome back for the new year at Ashgrove. Corbel Construction will begin taking control of the building site for our new learning spaces tomorrow. As explained in the latest Ashgrove Update newsletter, there will be no pedestrian entry off McKenzie Place once the fence is up. Please be aware that due to construction we are not able to park on McKenzie Place either. The work on our new building is likely to be completed mid November. There will be a special opening before the building will be used, and at this stage the opening is being planned for February 2017.  

Mecca Hampton-James
Ashgrove BOT

Recently we have been working with the Architects, Brewer Davidson, from Auckland on the finer details of the design. At our last meeting we discussed in detail the framing, heating and lighting amongst other things. The schedule is on track with the final design drawings to be made available to the Ministry of Education for sign off by the end of July. By August the tender process will be in progress and building on site will hopefully happen soon after.  

 

Christine Chadwick

 

Here are the perspective drawings for our fabulous new building! The design is still progressing and subject to change.

Mecca Hampton-James
Ashgrove BOT

If you missed hearing Christine Chadwick talk about Ashgrove's building programme in the interview with Jared McCulloch on CTV News Thursday 19th Feb, you can click on the link below. You may recognise some of the children!

CTV News

Mecca Hampton-James
Ashgrove BOT