Tawa College

Teachers at Tawa College surely have favourites and give them extra attention. Tawa College focuses mainly on music, sports, and communication. They give greater opportunities to individuals who participate in these three areas and reward these three areas the most.

Tawa College spends a ridiculous sum of money on a $40,000 piano that no student can even use, in addition to purchasing new laptops/equipment for the music department. In addition, as laptops are being updated more regularly, students in music lessons have great opportunities to participate in. Students who do not pursue careers in communication, sports, or music are not taken seriously by Tawa College. At the moment, I wish to pursue a career in computer science and digital information technology, but Tawa College is unable to even make the best financial decisions because they are unable to purchase new computers for the computer lab. In addition to looking for additional computer teachers : there are only two at the moment, making it challenging to fit every student who wants to take part in computer-related classes. There are only 4 computer labs at Tawa College (I'm not sure if that's correct) and only 2 computer teachers, which makes it difficult to fit in all the students.

People with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, ADHD, and other conditions, are often overlooked and do not receive the necessary support. Rather, students who skip class, smoke, and DGAF about school receive good treatment, while those who perform academically well receive less attention. The majority of students claim that most teachers ignore them or undervalue them when they complete the assigned work, leading the teachers to falsely accuse them of plagiarism or other offences.

Teachers also mark assignments unfairly to most students. For example, two students may have completed the same work and should have received the same grade; instead, one of them may have received a lower grade than the other. Why is this the case? perhaps as a result of the teachers' obvious favouritism.

It appears that Tawa College has an affection for athletes, rewarding them with prizes, coupons, and other delights. In addition, it appears like the sports department is receiving a lot of new equipment even if they can get by with the older stuff.

An increasing number of teachers are quitting Tawa College. One such teacher, Gordon Hall, taught computer science and digital information technology. He was one of the few who genuinely cared about his students' professional development and actively supported and guided them. (Mr. Foulds is also quite great). Returning to my original concern, Tawa College is losing teachers , which reduces the amount of areas the college can offer. In keeping with that, the majority of teachers are over 70 years old (not that I'm against that), but some of them simply don't know enough about the subject to be able to teach it, therefore it falls to us students to teach the subjects to ourselves.

Overall not a good college at all.

This school prioitises far too much on its Music department, and culutrally boxes its students - it also uses Pasfika culture for money and reputation.
The new principal doesn't acutally act, and many of the staff feel they're not respected or listened.

This school lacks transperency, and only focuses on Music.
All other departments which have a REAL impact on society are left in the dust.

Don't bring your childern here.
Tawa College has gone sour.

Below average school. Only positive aspects are the variety of options and courses they offer in comparison to other schools in the same region. Teachers feel a bit biased, generally favor students over others. The canteen meals are not interesting and the special lunch meals are disappointing in taste. School feels disconnected, unless you knew someone from before it’ll be really hard to find friends. In order to be part of an activity you’ll require to be part of a specific group, the school doesn’t promote activities that involve every student, when they do, it’s so poor administrated and promoted barely anyone decides to take part in it. Timetables feels a bit extra as many things could be improved as well. The school has old buildings, not somewhere pleasant to be, students have to sit in corridors due to the school not having indoor places for students apart from classrooms which are always kept closed and library. Porirua College offers a whole living room with small kitchen in every house color where students can be during break times. Most of the times windows are kept open due to poor ventilation system, for this reason if it’s a cold day you better bring extra clothes.

Only go here if you want a career in music, sports, or some form of communication.

Tawa college is decently well known for being amazing in certain aspects, many students have gotten into Ivy league schools after participating in Tawa's music programmes, sports progreams, and race unity speeches.

However, if you have no interest in this type of thing, avoid this school at all costs, even if it means homeschooling. Tawa college heavily neglects the teaching of students who aren't going to make them look good by doing subjects that Tawa is known for.

This school ruins the mental health of anyone who isn't doing the subjects that the school is known across the country for. They actively go out of their way to pressure certain students into doing subjects they don't want to do.

Personally, I did science subjects. Tawa college destroyed my life-long interest in chemistry and physics, and I only held onto my computer science interest because the teacher(Gordon Hall) actually cared about his student's success.

Many of the teachers are genuinely lovely, but the majority either don't really care about student's success, or are far too old to teach. - I had multiple teachers who didn't even understand what they were teaching, and spent half the class trying to remember how to do something in order to teach it - this was mostly the older (70+) teachers. I ended up having to teach myself many concepts.

I truly hated this school, but I do recommend it for anyone who is sure about a future career in Music, sports, or communication.

It’s only good if you’re into sports/music.

They have awful mental health support & services. The way they schedule NCEA internals is a recipe for depression. During the time I was there, I was hospitalised for depression multiple times - without even attempting. It literally got so bad that I had physical symptoms, I’d also have screaming panic attacks whenever I went NEAR the school in my last year.

There’s a reason they have an expensive safety gate on the train tracks outside the school. So many people have taken their lives because of how awful this school is, they ignore students that need help and focus on the sports/music students.

Thanks to Tawa College, I went from an excellence endorsement in year 11 (+ almost entirely excellence in yr 9/10) to failing level 2 & 3 with barely 30 credits in each. - they didn’t even attempt to help me or check up on me. This has happened to so many other students at that horrible place.

I honestly doubt I’ll ever fully recover from being at that school.