Rotorua Boys' High Students build chicken coops for rural community

The Rotorua Boys' High School Year 13 building students at Bunnings Warehouse Rotorua with their certificates. Photo/Shauni James

Students from Rotorua Boys' High School were rewarded and celebrated for their hard work creating chicken coops for their local community.

At the start of the school year, the students were set the task of building the coops as part of their woodwork classes, with the view the coops would be provided to primary schools and early childhood centres in the rural community.

The students were provided with the supplies necessary by Bunnings Warehouse Rotorua.

On May 14 the students delivered the coops to Horohoro School and Taki Early Childhood Centre.

Both were appreciative of the work and effort the young students put into helping them.

The students received certificates and had a lunch at Bunnings Warehouse Rotorua last Friday.

Bunnings Warehouse Rotorua and Rotorua Boys' High School have received further requests from community groups, with plans for the programme to continue.

Rotorua Boys' High School head of technology Ros Wallis says she was contacted by Bunnings to ask if the building students would be interested in being involved with a community project.

The brief was to build a couple of hen huts that students from the schools would design and then her Year 13 building students would build.

"The boys loved the idea, and so staff came down to talk to them about time frames and designs."

Ros says from start to finish probably took about four weeks, and there was a variety of skills involved the students had to learn from.

These included teamwork, problem-solving, communication skills and leadership skills.

She says during teamwork, leadership skills arise through actions, especially through project management.

"The students loved meeting the children and being involved with the community spirit.

"The boys have learned to work in teams and collaborate with each other."

She says there was a project manager for each team and they became responsible for the quality and driving the team to meet deadlines.

Safety was paramount, and this again was left to the project manager to ensure each student took that responsibility seriously, she says.

They also learned time management, people skills and the importance of working with a stakeholder to produce the finished outcome.

Building student David Gittens, 17, says they built two coops and what he enjoyed was seeing the faces of the children at the school and early childhood centre when they saw the coops.

He says it felt pretty amazing being able to give the coops to them and he enjoyed the whole building process because of the feeling of self-accomplishment.

David says building is something he would consider taking on after school - "for most of us it's our dream career".