Cashmere High School

History

The school opened at the beginning of the 1956 school year with 198 students under founding headmaster Terry McCombs, a former Member of the New Zealand House of Representatives who had served as Minister of Education from 1947 to 1949. McCombs served seventeen years as headmaster before retiring at the end of the 1972 school year.

In the late 1980s, state school administration across New Zealand was reformed by the Fourth Labour Government in what was known as the "Tomorrow's Schools" reforms. From 1989, Cashmere was no longer under the governance of the Canterbury Education Board, which had been abolished, but under the self-governance of a Board of Trustees elected by the school community.

The current principal, Mark Wilson, replaced Dave Turnbull in July 2009.

Cashmere suffered moderate damage in the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, mainly from liquefaction. On the day, the school had closed for instruction for the day at 12:00pm due to the Post Primary Teachers' Association, the main secondary school teachers' trade union, holding a paid union meeting that afternoon, meaning very few students and staff were on site when the quake struck at 12:51pm. The school reopened on 14 March after the school buildings were inspected and deemed safe, and essential repairs and temporary fixes had been carried out. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the school played host to Linwood College in a site sharing agreement while Linwood's severely damaged facilities were inspected and repaired. Cashmere used the site in the morning, while Linwood used the site in the afternoon for five months, until Linwood College moved back to its original site on 1 August.

Enrolment

Cashmere operates an enrolment scheme to help curb roll numbers and prevent overcrowding. The school's home zone, in which students residing are automatically entitled to be enrolled without rejection, covers the southern suburbs of Christchurch as well as the settlements around the western and southern shores of Lyttelton Harbour. Suburbs and towns within the zone include Beckenham, Cashmere, Huntsbury, Murray Aynsley, Saint Martins, Somerfield, Spreydon, Sydenham, and Westmorland; parts of Addington and Hoon Hay; Hillsborough, Opawa and Waltham west of State Highway 73; and Governors Bay, Diamond Harbour, and Port Levy. Students residing outside the zone are accepted as roll places allow per the enrollment scheme order of preference and secret ballot.

At the October 2013 Education Review Office (ERO) review, Cashmere had 1666 students enrolled, including 46 international students. There was an even umber of male and female students. Seventy-five percent of students identified as New Zealand European (Pākehā), nine percent as Māori, three percent each as Asian, and Pacific Islanders, and ten percent as another ethnicity.

Academics

Cashmere High School operates a regular timetable with five 55-minute teaching periods per day, except on Wednesdays where teaching periods are only 50 minutes each.

In Year 9, English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education and Health are compulsory and are studied for the whole year, while students rotate through four Technology subjects: Design Technologies, Graphic Communication, Materials and Electronics and Control, and Food Technology, studying one of them per school term. Students choose two Arts options out of Visual Art, Drama and Music to study for two terms each, and a Foreign Language option out of French, Japanese, Te Reo Māori and Spanish. There are no optional subjects.

In Year 10, English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education and Health remain compulsory subjects. Students elect between two and four optional subjects to fill the two remaining subject lines on their timetable - either two full-year subjects, a full-year and two half-year subjects, or four half-year subjects.

In Years 11 to 13, students complete the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), the main secondary school qualification in New Zealand. Levels 1, 2 and 3 of NCEA are usually completed in years 11, 12 and 13 respectively, although students can choose subjects from different levels depending on their progress through the NCEA level system. Students study six subjects per year (five in Year 13), with English being compulsory in Years 11 and 12, and Mathematics and Science being compulsory in Year 11.

In 2013, 91.4 percent of students leaving Cashmere High held at least NCEA Level 1, 79.6 percent held at least NCEA Level 2, and 54.0 percent held at least University Entrance. This compares nationally to 85.2%, 74.2%, and 49.0% respectively.

Conductive education

The school has a Conductive Education unit, which opened in 2002, and caters for up to 20 secondary school-aged students.

School houses

Cashmere has six school houses into which students are grouped, each is named after a notable New Zealander.

Notable alumni