History

Te Kura o Hiruharama sits in the heart of the Hiruharama community along with the Marae, Church and Papakaenga.  Hiruharama is a small community located 10km south of Ruatorea. The community is small, however it is significant in a wider sense due to our history.  The 10 acres of land where our school is sited was gifted to the Crown by our tipuna Matutaera Nihoniho for the purpose of building a school to educate his people’s children, this vision of his is still remembered and honoured today.  Our school hall is named is his memory – Te Matutaera Nihoniho Horo.

Hiruharama School was established in 1895 and has a long, proud history celebrates 125 years this year since being opened.  Many of the current students have had parents, grandparents and great-grandparents attend the school. The majority of our students catch buses from Ruatorea to attend our school, this is a conscious choice as there are two alternative primary schooling options in Ruatorea and another small 2 teacher school located further down the road from Hiruharama that offers bus transport from Ruatorea for their children.  This choice is made for a variety of reasons, the most common being whanau tradition, a school commitment to total immersion learning, as well as bilingualism and Hiruharamatanga and satisfaction with the quality of the overall school environment, including learning and teaching and school values.