St Peter's Guiding Principles

St Peter’s is charting a new course as it heads to its centenary year in 2036. We will always be a school with an abiding love of tradition and a fearless embrace of progress. Our new strategic direction is focused on the St Peter’s Seven-Year Student Journey and is driven by the following guiding principles:

We are a Year 7 to 13 School

St Peter’s stands strongly as ‘one school’ from Year 7 to Year 13 – one student body, one team of staff, one community. We are committed to light a pathway for our students that is appropriately continuous and progressive across all year levels. Within this, we offer a ‘soft landing to senior school’ for our youngest students and a ‘launchpad to life’ for our most senior. We will continue to evolve to ensure that each year builds meaningfully on the one before it. Since 1936, St Peter’s has believed in the capacity and potential of young people. Today, as a Year 7 to 13 School, the trajectory of the seven-year student journey will be one that, in an appropriate and inspirational way, rises to a crescendo.

We are a Holistic School

St Peter’s has prioritised a holistic education ever since its foundation. Indeed, the notion of being holistic helped to establish St Peter’s as a visionary school in 1936. By definition, being holistic is characterised by the belief that the parts of something are interconnected and can be explained only by reference to the greater whole. St Peter’s is exactly this – a school where opportunities flourish and abound – both in and out of the classroom. We embrace the fact that it takes a conversation to understand what St Peter’s is all about – we can’t be summed up in a sentence! Overall, we remain committed to being visionary in activating the mind, body and spirit of our young people through the environment and education we offer.

We are an Anglican School

Being an Anglican school means so much more to us than being values-based. We are inclusive because we are Anglican; we invite people of other faiths, or none, to join our community. Because we are Anglican, we pursue truth and share the truth of God’s love for all people. Because we are Anglican, we follow the example and teachings of Jesus, while also ensuring the stories of others are welcomed, heard, explored and respected. Indeed, because we are Anglican, we teach our students to appreciate other perspectives, to think critically, and to hold conflicting views in tension. This is good both for the culture of our school and for wider society when our young people head out into the world.

We are a Coeducational School

We are no longer the boys school once established in 1936. Girls joined St Peter’s in 1987 and both boys and girls have flourished in our truly coeducational setting ever since. Indeed, we recognise that girls are integral to a thriving education for boys – and vice versa! Being truly coeducational means that we can not only reflect on society – as every leading school should – but we can do so valuably as a reflection of society, through an appropriately balanced and coeducational lens. Furthermore, we are confident that our coeducational environment develops a respect and reciprocity in our young people that is vital preparation for life and relationships beyond their school years.

We are a Boarding School

St Peter’s is proudly a boarding school and not just a school with boarders – there is a big difference. Boarding has been an integral part of school life at St Peters’ since its foundation. What this means is that there is a beating heart here on campus twenty-four-seven. Over four hundred people call St Peter’s Home – as you can imagine, this is a big complex family, and so we believe in our capacity to support the complexity in yours. Being a boarding school also means that we place great value on pastoral care and on the wellbeing of every individual in our school community. Overall, we recognise the great rewards in the boarding routine, and the lifelong friendships that are formed in a boarding setting.

We are a World School

St Peter’s is an international community; we embrace students and staff from all nations and cultures. We deliver a world-renowned educational pathway in the form of the International Baccalaureate and the global passport this offers our students. The NCEA also leads our students to opportunities both here in New Zealand and overseas. We recognise that more and more of our students will enter an international market to pursue their dreams, and, in preparation, we will support them to lift their sights and broaden their horizons. Importantly, to us, being a world school also means being proudly one that reflects and represents our nation Aotearoa. Overall, we are a world school because we are evolving as a school, just as the world and education itself is evolving around us.