Our community
“We are well on the way to becoming one of the best country schools in New Zealand”
Principal, Mr F N Wilson, 1978 Magpie School Magazine.
Mount Hutt College is a Year 7-13 coed school situated in the picturesque township of Methven. The community serves as a gateway to a range of adventure tourism opportunities including the high-country lakes and walkways, Mount Hutt, snow-sports and biking and a host of opportunities offered by the mighty Rakaia River. Our community is predominantly rural, focussed around agriculture with dairy, arable and livestock farming comprising significant parts of our local industry.
Our student population has sat around 500 students for the last five years. Traditionally, the school has been seen as an attractive destination for international students . Our school services students from a wide geographical reach with 40% of our learners coming from the local Methven area and the other 60% of learners coming from the wider Mid Canterbury district including: Ashburton, Dorie, Chertsey, Mount Somers/Springburn, Lauriston, Tinwald, Mayfield and Rakaia. We form a wider Kāhui Ako- Community of Learning with the majority of these schools. Our staff within the school are talented, innovative and bring a diverse range of skill sets to the table. Many of our staff have strong connections to the region and use these to provide unique educational opportunities for our learners.
Our agriculture and tourism focus, and the opportunities offered by our local environment, have resulted in an ethnically rich and diverse school population. We have a strong Filipino influence in our school and also boast students of Japanese, Chinese, Tongan, German and South African heritage. 7% of our student population identify as Māori and the school has strong connections with Hakatere Mārae and a developing partnership with Kāti Huirapa and Kai Tahu. Our connection to Te Ao Māori is something we take pride in and is a growing part of the fabric of our kura.
Our local environment offers many unique features that the school seeks to leverage to enrich the experiences of our learners. Our Outdoor Education programme at Year 11-13 provides a top class programme for our learners to develop their skills and capabilities, at Year 7-10 there are a range of EOTC activities (Education Outside The Classroom) for our learners to engage in, whilst our Wednesday Sport and Recreation programme provides opportunities to maximize the most of our local environment with mountain biking, tramping and snowsports activities featured in a wider smorgasbord of opportunities for our learners. Our Agriculture Academy, Gateway and Project Based Learning programmes also seek to maximize features of our local environment.
Our present site has a rich history as an education institution in our country. Beginning as the Methven School in 1882 it later evolved into Methven District School in 1925 and then became home to Methven High School and Methven Primary School in 1969. In 1997 Methven High School became Mount Hutt College to recognize the significant catchment that our learners come from. Our learners both past and present have a long history of success academically, in sports, service, culture and the arts.
With a new Principal joining us from Term 4, 2019, and the formal split of the joint Lauriston/MHC Board of Trustees, we have had a unique opportunity to review our wider school direction with our wider community. This process was worked through alongside our community across 2020 and is the genesis of all that follows in this Charter. To access a complete breakdown of our journey please click here.