In 2025, May Road School will celebrate its 100th birthday. A lot has happened over the past century, but as the neighbourhood continues to change and grow, the school remains a hub for the community. With an extensive building programme set to commence in 2022, May Road School is looking to the future – built on a solid foundation that combines a respect for the past and excitement about the road ahead. 

Being there for whānau is at the heart of what the school does. “This is intentional,” says May Road School principal, Lynda Stuart. “It takes a village to raise a child and we are a village. The school tries to wrap around the community really strongly. Our school is about teaching and learning, because that’s our core business, but actually it’s far more holistic than that. To meet the needs of children, you have to be able to connect with family – and that’s the broader sense of family,” Lynda says.

“All staff are strong at creating relationships and reaching out to the community. One of the things that we want to do is have everybody feeling like they’re part of the school, they’re part of their child’s learning journey – and that we need them.”

Just like the tamariki who learn in its classrooms, May Road School is growing. The whole community is growing as new whānau come to Roskill South to live in new homes being built as part of the Roskill Development. The current May Road roll of just under 200 will increase to approximately 800. It’s important to Lynda that what makes the school special grows with it and isn’t lost. 

A $9 million building programme is scheduled to start next year, where classrooms in poor condition will be replaced with a three-storey, 15-classroom block. This includes eight classrooms to cater for roll growth. There will also be a new car park, as well as a safe drop-off and pick-up zone. Lynda says the improvements to come out of the building programme are “very, very exciting.”

“We work in partnership with the Ministry of Education and May Road School to ensure our local Roskill South community is supported during the construction period and that they receive funding to upgrade facilities for the new whānau and tamariki moving into the neighbourhood,” says Lucy Smith, Senior Development Manager for the Roskill Development. 

You can read more about what is happening in Roskill in the latest issue of Roskulture here.