Puketapu (New Plymouth) is in the suburb of Bell Block. We are close to the New Plymouth Airport and often have planes flying low over our playground. (Please don't confuse us with the Puketapu School which is on the outskirts of Napier, Hawkes Bay).

Our school goes up to Year eight (Form 2) and has between 250 and 300 pupils. We get our name from the local hapu (Puketapu means Sacred Hill) – which is part of the Te Atiawa Iwi.

From our school grounds we get a great view of Mount Taranaki and we are so close to the sea that we can hear the waves. Most of our visitors comment on how lucky we are to have these views – I guess we get used to them. We do make good use of the beach, especially in the summer when we use it to study the rock pools and to walk down to the beach.

Most of our pupils live in Bell Block and either walk or bike to school. Our school has four syndicates that are named after our Rimu,Totara, Kowhai, and Kauri trees. Because they are the biggest, the seniors are the Kauri Syndicate. We also have Whanau groups – five groups with a mixture of year one to year eight children in each. We use these for lots of different activities, often sports or art and it is a great way of making sure that we get to know each other really well. Our senior pupils are really good at looking after the younger ones. These Whanau groups are called Kakapo, Kiwi, Kotuku, Piwakawaka and Tui. We have a Whanau trophy which we compete for from time to time. We also have Whanau banners which you will see as you look through our web-site page.

We enjoy getting messages from people who visit our web-site and we hope that you will send us something to respond to. Enjoy our page – we certainly get a lot of enjoyment out of others.