Lemonwood Grove School

The school was finished 6 weeks ahead of schedule and under budget. This can largely be attributed to the success of this inexpensive and high-quality model that will now be used within the Christchurch Schools Rebuild (CSR) programme.

Facts and figures

Cost $12 million
Current roll 100
Current roll capacity 400
Construction began April 2016
Construction complete November 2016
Architect Stephenson and Turner Architects and Mark Newdick Landscape Architects
Builder Southbase Construction
Opened January 2017

While not a part of the Christchurch School Rebuild programme, Lemonwood Grove was completed by the Ministry of Education’s CSR team.

Lemonwood Grove School is the first school in New Zealand to be constructed using specialised, factory-made, pre-cut panels. The process involves using digital technology to translate building designs into staged production outputs using automated machinery. The panels include everything right down to the holes for the electrical sockets ready to be delivered and installed onsite.

Lemonwood Grove School Exterior

Located in Rolleston, the new $12 million Lemonwood Grove School has welcomed around 100 students.

Lemonwood Grove School will cater for Year 1-8 students across 17 teaching spaces. It has been built on a four hectare site on the South side of Rolleston in response to anticipated population growth in the area.

The new school features:

  • a multi-purpose space
  • a library
  • outdoor teaching spaces
  • an adventure play area
  • technology ‘maker spaces’.

The flexible learning environment focuses on students’ engagement, motivation and enjoyment and allows learners to work independently or collaboratively.

Lemonwood Grove School Classroom

Each learning studio is known as a ‘learning landscape’. The school has capacity for 400 students. At the moment there are 70 students, so they are all together in the central landscape, next to the resource room.

While the other rooms aren’t yet being used, the school is opening them up to the community. A Reading Teaching Learning Behaviour unit is currently working out of the additional space at the school. A space on site has been cleared for the Waitaha Special School to relocate its base to Lemonwood Grove School in the next couple of years.

Collaborative spaces extend to teachers who don’t have assigned classrooms but rather move around flexible desks in the administration building called The Grove.

Lemonwood Grove School Principal, Sean Bailey

Lemonwood Grove School Entrance Area

The entrance area is welcoming and sunny with comfortable chairs and a children’s play table. There's a bookshelf stocked with books on parenting and child education.

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