Christ's College marks 175 years this weekend

Christ's College is New Zealand's oldest private boys' school (and second oldest high school) and is marking 175 years this weekend.

A number of activities have been planned to mark the occasion with about 1400 people attending across the weekend.

Events include the opening of a school museum which is a collection of the school's archives on Thursday, a cocktail party on Friday which is expected to attract up to 800 people and a formal dinner on Saturday night.

Emile Donovan talked to Jeremy Johnson who is a Christ's College old boy and now chair of the school's board about a range of issues including why the school performs so competitively in academics, the ethics of private schooling and classism in New Zealand, as well as Johnson's own experiences at school and how being gay in a private boys' school has changed in the 20 years since he was a student.

Johnson said his favourite hymn was 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross' which was the one they used to sing just before Easter during Lent, although he was never a choir boy as his voice was not up to it.

Johnson said he was in Corfe House which only eventuated in the 1960s and was named after CC Corfe who was one of the school's earliest headmasters and was very popular with the boys.

"The house system remains fundamental to College and its ethos, so it goes back as a lot of it does to the way that English public schools were modelled and the idea was all the boys, because they all were borders and they all were boys back when we're talking about, would be sent to houses with housemasters."

The system provides a framework for competition within the school, he said.

"But more than that it provides an ability for the older boys to get to know the younger boys because you have an integrated community from Years 9 to 13 which is a great experience, both for the older boys cause they have direct contact with younger people and can learn the benefits of mentoring without all the rubbish about fagging that we used to have. And the Year 9 boys obviously begin to model themselves and to grow based on the leadership they're exposed to through the older boys."

Fagging was a tradition where younger boys essentially had to act as servants to the older boys - but this custom had not been maintained, he said.

"They would have to do jobs for them like move their cars, warm the toilet seat possibly, make toast, run errands, clean their clothes - it was all pretty medieval."

Johnson said in his experience Christ College continued to have a degree of recognition as a fine institution in both Auckland where he was now and in Christchurch.

"College sees itself and is in fact a leading school and that community that you get entry to is still relevant."

The community aspect means people have had similar experiences which acts as a great bonding factor, he said.

"As a result you often tend to know a lot of people in common."

The school role this year is 738 boys and the fact it is a small school also helps to develop a sense of community, he said.

Johnson agreed that there was often a certain amount of baggage associated with having gone to the school and he often added that he was a scholarship student.

About 28 percent of boys at the school received some form of financial assistance to be there, he said.

"So this idea of it being the place for the landed Canterbury aristocracy is simply not a reflection of the diversity of our boys and has not been for quite some decades actually."

That said there were also some families who had sent their sons there for generations, he said.

The expense of tuition fees

Christ's College tuition fees are $34,190 per year.

Johnson agreed that was a lot of money but said one reason was because there was an "all-inclusive fee model" which meant that the fee included things like books and sport.

"The other reason as to why relates to two factors - we have a heritage campus, we have the big school ... which is the school library now, first built in 1863, we have the oldest educational building still in use in this country, we also happen to live in a seismically active area so our insurance bills cost somewhere near $1 million a year, the other factor is we have an excellent staff-to-student ratio, some of our classes can be very small."

Johnson said he believed Christ's College offered a better quality of education than the state system and it was holistic and also catered to the boys' spiritual, sporting and moral needs.

The school's motto is "Bene Tradita, Bene Servanda" or "good traditions well maintained".

Johnson said service was a fundamental part of the school.

"The boys have a service component as part of their education, they're taught through chapel the idea of serving others, our Anglican faith remains a very good tradition."

The school's uniform shows a respect to being dressed properly, as well as a respect for special occasions, he said.

The yardstick was always whether it taught the boys "to be virtuous men of good character", he said.

Bullying could not be totally avoided at schools, he said, but the key thing was to have a school culture where it was acceptable for victims to report it.

"You have to be able to deal with it sensibly, so don't over-react to it and ultimately try and get the person doing the bullying to understand why it's not acceptable."

'Profound shift'

Johnson said Christ's College was not the easiest school to be a gay student at when he was there, but it did recognise achievement and talent and by the time he left he felt accepted.

During his time as a student at Christ's College "like I was a scholarship boy who was overweight boy who was closeted", he said.

He said when he was at school there were no boys who were gay who came out.

"Nobody was out, I have to add up in my head, but there's somewhere probably like six or seven boys in my year group who turned out to be gay and about the same in the year group above me," he said.

"So there has been a profound shift and within the school today that sort of thing is simply not an issue, so you will have students who are out, some years ago it must have been 2017-18 we had a student who decided to transition while at college and the boys are very welcoming and affirming of diversity in that sense."

Abuse in Care inquiry stressed need for supervision - Johnson

Johnson said primary thing that Christ's College had taken from the Abuse in Care inquiry was the need for constant supervision of the boys.

"So a lot of the boy-on-boy stuff was able to happen because there wasn't adequate supervision."

There was a need for suitable systems to be in place so that when abuse was reported it was acted on, he said.

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