| James Hargest College | |
| Seal Image: | James Hargest College logo.jpg |
| Seal Size: | 250px |
| Motto: | Keep Faith |
| Coordinates: | (Senior) -46.3907°N 168.3622°W (Junior) |
| Type: | State Co-Educational Secondary (Year 7–13) with divided campuses |
| Established: | 1958; years ago |
| Moe: | 552 |
| Principal: | Mike Newell[1] |
| Houses: | Watson, Hamilton, Menzies, Thompson |
| Decile: | 8P[2] |
| Address: | 6 Layard Street, Invercargill (Junior Campus) 288 Layard Street, Invercargill (Senior Campus) |
| School Roll: | |
James Hargest College is a large school of 1,882 students (as of 2023),[3] in Invercargill, New Zealand. The school caters for students from year 7–13.
The school is divided into two campuses, known as James Hargest Junior Campus (Year 7–8) and James Hargest Senior Campus (Year 9–13). The campuses are at opposite ends of Layard Street and are separated by about a 20-minute walk (1.5 km).
James Hargest College is named after Brigadier-General James Hargest.
James Hargest Junior Campus was formerly known as Rosedale Intermediate School until it became part of the former James Hargest High School to make James Hargest College as part of the Ministry of Education review of schools in 2004. Other intermediate schools in the city merged with the newly formed James Hargest Junior Campus, increasing the school's roll and stretching resources. Because of this, a new technology block has been built, and several new classrooms have been built since the merge. There are 21 homeroom classrooms.The subjects in the New Technology Block (known as the Atrium) include Science, Art, Woodwork (known as Hard Materials), Foods & Fabrics technology, and an ICT & Media Suite.
The Senior Campus covers Years 9–13, and as of 1 July 2020 had 1271 enrolled students.[4] The school has a New Zealand $ 2.2 million library, which officially opened in 2004 that also includes the Guidance and Careers Centre, as well as a Library Reading Room and Library Classroom. The library's classroom has desks, computers and an interactive whiteboard, as well as the reading room where students can browse the library's collection of magazines, newspapers and many books. There are also DVD movies available for hire to students.
The Hargest Centre is a large building at the senior campus. The large gymnasium viewing gallery is popular with students who often go there to watch interclass sports at lunch break. There is a cafeteria at the centre, where students can purchase their lunch, and there are tables for the older students to eat indoors.
During the early hours of Thursday 3 January 2013, the C Block was badly damaged by a deliberately lit fire.[5] The block was undergoing major renovations at the time. Fortunately, most of the equipment in the block, such as computers and servers, had been removed months prior to the fire. On 15 January 2013, it was revealed that the fire was deliberately lit by two ex-students of the school. They were sentenced to 3 years, 4 months jail and 3 years, 6 months jail respectively.[6]
School sports are popular and well established at Hargest. The school frequently shares inter school sporting competitions with rivals Logan Park High School in Dunedin and Gore High School in Gore.
Students can partake in a very wide variety of sports to represent the school, and there are often notices for tryouts in provincial sports teams.
Everyone at Hargest is placed into a school house. These are Menzies (green), Watson (blue), Thompson (red) and Hamilton (yellow). Near the beginning of each school year, the four houses compete for points at an athletics competition at Surrey Park Athletics Park, next to Stadium Southland.
On 24 August 2009, Paul O'Connor, who had been Principal since 1993, announced his resignation from the role due to retirement. He remained principal until the end of 2009.[7] On 5 November 2009, Andy Wood was announced as Paul O'Connor's successor in the role. Wood was principal of Central Southland College in nearby Winton. Wood was also deputy principal of the college from 1982 to 2003. He began in the role in the first term of 2010. In November 2019, Mike Newell was announced as the new principal of the school. He started at the beginning of Term 2, 2020.[8]