Pakuranga College

Infobox NZ school
name = Pakuranga College
motto = Caelum Certe Patet
("Reach for the Skies")
established = 1960
principal = Heather McRae
address = Pigeon Mountain Road,
Bucklands Beach,
Auckland,
New Zealand
type = State co-ed Secondary School Year 9-13
roll = 2112
decile = 8 [ [http://www.minedu.govt.nz/web/downloadable/dl7698_v1/decile-changes-2007-2008-web-state-s-integ.xls Decile change 2007 to 2008 for state & state integrated schools] ]
MOE = 80
homepage = [http://www.pakuranga.school.nz/ www.pakuranga.school.nz]

Pakuranga College is a secondary school in south east Auckland, New Zealand. Its current principal is Heather McRae.

chool Buildings

Pakuranga College has traditionally named its blocks of classrooms after past principals and staff. This is evident in all the principals from Mr Rae to Ms Stone having classroom blocks named after them:
*Rae Block - a general purpose block, with a strong focus on the social sciences.
*Rive Block - a general purpose block, containing science classrooms, computer labs and the languages department.
*Seager Block - the mathematics block, containing all the mathematics offices.
*Pamela Stone Block - the English block.
*Jill Sweeny Block - the most recently built science block, containing most of the schools' science classrooms (Chemistry, Biology and Physics). The block is named after the former science teacher and head of department, Jill Sweeny, who contributed a lot to the science department.

There are also a number of other buildings throughout the school that cater for specific topics such as Art A Block, Media Studies O Block (built only recently), Technology T Block and the gym, minigym, activities room and weights room specialised for Physical Education and Dance classes.

House System

There are six houses in Pakuranga College, each named after a New Zealand native tree: Kauri, Rimu, Totara, Pohutukawa, Nikau and Matai. Each house is represented by a different color as well as having its own dean and assistant dean, who deals with the day to day management of the house, such as disciplinary issues and student management. Each house consists of 12 tutor groups. Each tutor group is led by an individual teacher and each tutor group contains approximately 30 students, of all year levels (Years 9-13). Until the end of 2007, tutor groups would meet for 20 minutes before the commencement of the regular classes, however, this meeting time was moved until the completion of second period, 20 minutes before the start of interval, the tutor group maintaing it's original length.During tutor students have their names taken and are read the daily notices to see what activities are on that day.

Ribena exposed

As part of a school science project in 2004 at Pakuranga College, two 14-year-old school girls (Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo) discovered that Ribena, a blackcurrent fruit juice drink sold in 100ml ready-to-drink containers contained very little Vitamin C, contrary to advertising for the product. Approaches by the two teens to the company did not resolve the issue but the matter was publicised on national consumer affairs television show "Fair Go" and came to the attention of the Commerce Commission (a government funded 'consumer watch-dog'). The commission's testing found that Ribena contained no detectable vitamin C. On March 27, 2007, GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty in an Auckland District Court to 15 charges relating to misleading conduct, and was fined $217,000. [cite web|title=Students' juicy discovery lands Ribena producers in court|url=http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1882263.htm|work=Australian Broadcasting Corporation|date=2007-03-26|accessdate=2007-11-09] [cite web|title=NZ vitamin C row hits Ribena firm |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6498479.stm|work=BBC News|date=2007-03-27|accessdate=2007-11-09]

References