Welcome

Bethlehem School first opened in 1883 and has had a very interesting and successful history.

The school is situated at the junction of Bethlehem and Carmichael Roads, only 7 km from the centre of Tauranga. It is set in extensive, sunny, park-like grounds with spacious playing and sporting facilities, in a peaceful semi-rural environment. Well kept gardens and buildings compliment the many attractive, mature, larger native trees scattered throughout the site.

The school has 24 classrooms and a site plan that allows very limited future growth. A new administration and library block was completed in 2000 and this includes offices, staffroom and withdrawal rooms. The school shares a building with the Bethlehem Community Pre-School which helps to provide an easy transition for children moving on to our school. Eighteen new teaching spaces have been added to the school since 1995. In 1997 additional land was purchased by the Ministry, the house occupying this site was removed in 2001 to make way for a new hard court area, new garages for storage and off street parking. The Old Administration Block is being used for remedial literacy and maths programmes such as Reading Recovery as well as resource storage. The old office area, now known as “The Hub” is where our SENCo, support staff and sports co-ordinator are based.

Our fields are approximately 1.5 ha in size with the boundaries almost completely fenced. We have three adventure playgrounds, two hard court areas, a fitness trail / confidence course, and a recently refurbished and heated swimming pool.

Following many years of planning and fundraising Bethlehem School Hall was officially opened in 2010. This $820,000 project would not have occurred without the wonderful support of our school community who along with generous contributions from TECT, BayTrust, the Carmichael Family (St Michaels Ltd), Carrus Corporation, Barry & Bev Gordon and the Friends of Bethlehem School 2009 raised almost $500,000 of this total. The hall has already become a great asset for the school and is providing similar benefits for the wider Bethlehem Community.

Other more recent developments include,

• a two classroom block with shared withdrawal space completed in 2012 as a result of roll growth.
  
  
• a BoT funded hall extension completed in 2015. The project includes a storage area for hall equipment and a large multi-purpose space to be used as an Arts Centre or, if required, as an overflow classroom.
  
  
• a recently completed 7 teaching space classroom block, designed to cater for more collaborative and personalised teaching and learning practices. Similar design features have been used with new schools being built by the MOE. Funding for this $1.5 million project has come from roll growth and from MOE 5YA funding. 5YA funds are given to schools to upgrade existing facilities and in our case we have replaced four old re-locatable classrooms.