Special Character

St Patrick's is a Catholic Integrated School.

In essence this means that we are funded by the Ministry of Education and follow the NZ Curriculum like all State schools, but that we are allowed to teach through the lense of our Catholicity and that our school is owned and managed by our Proprietor, the Bishop of Hamilton.

There are 237 Catholic integrated schools in New Zealand.

To get integrated status and access Crown funding, each Catholic school signed an Integration Agreement with the Crown. Some of the stipulations in our agreement are:

  • that the Diocese can charge attendance dues for children to attend the school
  • that 60% of our teachers must be practicing Catholics
  • that 90% of our students must fit the Preference Criteria (for more information see our Enrolments page)
  • that we are allowed to teach the Catholic Faith
  • that the Diocese will maintain the buildings and keep them up to current standards