The name Parua Bay means “The Bay of Two Pa” which historically is thought to refer to Motukiore Island (near Headland Farm Park) and the Nook Headland. Parua Bay’s first school opened in 1871 on Owhiwa Road (Mt Tiger) and relocated to its present site in 1872.
Parua Bay School caters for New Entrants to Year 8 students, and currently has five junior classes (Years 0-2) which make up Team Manu, two classes (Year 3) making up the GEMs, three classes (Years 4/5) making up the Hub, and four classes (Years 6-8) making up the Seniors. The school roll has increased rapidly in the last 18 months from 220 – 330 students; we currently have 20% Maori students. Due to this increased roll growth, a new four class development is being built situated at the bottom end of the school. This state of the art facility will be a modern learning environment (M.L.E.) purposely designed to cater for the needs of teaching and learning in a collaborative environment and will be ready to start using in the first half of 2017. The rest of the school is undergoing a transformation in terms of upgrading all classrooms to incorporate sliding glass doors between rooms, separate breakout spaces, new autex walls, carpets and an upgrade of classrooms’ I.C.T. devices.
The school has a great reputation for academic success and sports, “punching well above our weight” in several competitions and areas of expertise like Literacy, debating, Science Fair, rippa rugby, chess, squash and A.I.M.s Games. For the past two years Parua Bay School has won the Year 8 Intermediate School Debating Championship, and last year (2015) Parua Bay School won both the Year 7 and Year 8 Northland Schools Debating Championship. We were also the Northland Primary Chess Champions 2015 and represented Northland in a regional competition held in Auckland.
Parua Bay School operates a House Whanau system; all students enrolled are attached to one of our Whanau Houses, Manaia, Motukiore, Pakikaikutu and Taihika. Students compete for their house in a range of sporting and academic competitions throughout the year.