Local school just got more local

On the rolling hills of Greenhithe, deep in North Shore suburbia, a construction crew is carving a space in the landscape for the children of the future.

Upper Harbour Primary School on Kyle Rd will open at the start of next year. It's just one of 40 schools needed to cater to the region's booming population over the next 15 years.

For the Cotton family and their two primary-school age children, who live directly across the road, the new school couldn't be any more convenient. Four-year-old Newell Cotton is due to start school next year.

Having recently attended a meeting about the school, his mother Sue is seriously considering sending the young lad there - as well as shifting older sister Lois, 7, from her classes at Pinehill School in Browns Bay.

"What's the point of sending them all the way over there if they can be here and do all the normal things kiddies do?" she says.

"Lois can't possibly walk to school from where we are. It's just not walkable for a girl her age. Whereas this couldn't be more convenient."

The Cottons aren't just grateful beneficiaries of the Auckland region's educational boom - they're also part of the cause.

Alongside internal migration and natural population growth, immigration by families like the Cottons - who came from England at the tail end of 2002 - is one of the main factors behind the new construction plans.

- Herald on Sunday