When Tahakopa consolidates with The Catlins Area School (TCAS) at the end of this term, the Owaka institution will be the last of 27 schools from Glenomaru to the Chaslands covered by the jubilee.
The first Catlins school — a temporary building on sledge runners — opened on the old Owake township junction of Pounawea and Hinahina Rds in 1870. A permanent building with no fire or water in 1875 was shifted to the new Owaka township in 1907.
"We do not have much here in the way of entertainments but the fire certainly livened things up ... nothing was saved, not even the tawse [the strap]."
A Tahatika School parent wrote to the Otago Daily Times in 1926: "Many ride to school [and] there is nowhere to keep the horses except in the playground ... A horse got into the outhouse and the schoolboys had to knock the iron off the end to get [it] out!"
He felt money for school-house renovation would be better spent on accommodating the schoolchildren’s horses.
Jubilee organisers expect about 230 people for next month’s celebrations, which will include services, displays and a dance, tree planting and the ringing of the original, 135-year-old school bell, now rehoused in a tower in TCAS front garden.
More details are available on the TCAS website.
The schools
Owaka and District Schools 150th Jubilee celebrates more than 27 schools:
- Waipati
- Tautuku
- Chaslands
- Tahakopa
- Rimu
- Papatowai/Stuarts
- Maclennan
- Kahuika
- Puketiro
- Purakauiti
- Tarara
- Ratanui
- Pounawea
- Hinahina/Kahikatea
- Owaka/Owaka District High School/ The Catlins Area School
- Katea
- Riverside/Tahatika
- Owaka Valley
- Purekireki
- Otekura
- Ahuriri/Glenomaru
- Romareka
- Port Molyneux
- Reomoana
Short-lived schools based around sawmilling included Thomas Brown’s, Cooper and Lumsden’s Mill, Guthrie and Larnach’s Big Mill School, and the Catlins River Sawmill School all consolidated into Owaka and Catlins Area Schools.
