A few things have changed, though.
To Martin’s relief, corporal punishment was not practised as it was in King’s day.
King, however, did not feel he was worse of for it - "we all turned out all right" - and laughed remembering how another student had stolen a teacher's strap and cut it into little pieces.
"Unfortunately he had another one so he got a few extra straps."
King said students never wore shoes to school when he was a boy.
He recalled helping his father, Edwin Carter King, with the morning milking on their farm, now called Oakridge,
"I would run from one cow pat to another to keep my feet warm. Then I would come to school and people would say 'why didn't you wash your feel, they still smell like cow shit!'"
King said his grandfather arrived in the Bay of Plenty from England about 1915 and founded the school, then called School of Cambridge Road, in 1918.
"Being a scholar and a gentleman he approached the education board and said I want to start a school."
The local Tauranga Rimu Company supplied a small wooden shed to use as the schoolhouse.
King said a name change was soon necessary as all of the school’s mail was being delivered to the town of Cambridge.
He said the name chosen was taken from an acronym for the aforementioned company: Tau-Ri-Co, which became Tauriko.
People came from as far afield as Australia to attend the weekend's centenary celebrations, which included speeches and performances by current students, a high tea, and school tours on Friday, followed by activities, decade group photos and dinner and dancing at the nearby Tauriko Settlers Hall on Saturday.
The eldest attendees were in their 90s, having been at the school in the 1930s.
