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Waitaki Boys' High School Information

Waitaki Boys' High School is a secondary school for boys located in the northern part of the town of Oamaru, Otago, New Zealand, with day and boarding facilities, and was founded in 1883. It currently has a school roll of just over 530.

The school has a house system with four houses, Don, Forrester, Lee and Sutherland. It organises some cultural activities together with its nearby sister school, Waitaki Girls' High School.

Throughout much of the 20th century 'day-boys' and 'boarders' in true tradition of schoolboy jargon, ambivalently referred to each other respectively as 'scabs' and 'rats'.

The school is notable for its British colonial architecture, encompassing such historic buildings such as the Hall of Memories, an assembly hall, built to honour its former pupils who died in various wars.

In keeping with its unisex colonial past (echoes of the British class system and single-sex schools) the achievements of Waitaki's school leavers were the usual mixed bag. Some were exceptional old boys (ex-pupils) with meritorious achievements who moved on to achieve greatness, while others left and faded into obscurity. Anecdotal evidence also exists from some pupils (as in many other schools of the time) that bullying was common, largely unpoliced, and/or ignored. Waitaki's quasi-military discipline, plus its architecture and building placement which bear a passing resemblance to the German WW2 prisoner of war "Colditz Castle" in Poland, gave rise to the humorous and derogatory epithets "Colditz By The Sea" and "Stalag Waitaki" from many 1960s pupils.

Notable alumni

Main category: Former students of Waitaki Boys' High School.

Footnotes

  1. ^ From Bluff to Baghdad, Te Karaka, Winter 2005.
  2. ^ "125th anniversary to be 'momentous' occasion". Otago Daily Times. 21 June 2008. http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/oamaru/10421/125th-anniversary-be-039momentous039-occasion. Retrieved 2009-03-14.

Websites

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