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One Tree Hill College

One Tree Hill College is a state coeducational secondary school located in the district of Ellerslie in Auckland, New Zealand.

One Tree Hill College, known as Penrose High School until 2008, opened on 1 February 1955. In 2019 it had a student body of 1160 consisting of more than 40 different cultures.

The governing body for the college since 1989 has been the One Tree Hill College Board of Trustees. It provides curriculum, discipline and financial oversight but day-to-day management of the college, within the board's policy framework, is handled by the principal and the senior leadership team.

Penrose takes its name from Penrose Farm carved out of about 400ha (1000 acres) of land purchased by Cornishman William Williams from the Maori owners in 1843.

Williams (1806–1876), not related to the Anglican missionary of the same name, named the farm after Penrose Farm in the parish of Budock, Cornwall, where he is thought to have been born (though there is no record of this) and where his father was allegedly bailiff. According to Williams it was the ‘best farm in Budock, and the best in all Cornwall’.

Research by foundation principal Ron Stacey reveals the property on which Penrose High School stands originally formed part of land granted to James Haldane Watt, a settler, on 10 December 1847. When he died in 1876 he left it to his two sons, Robert Henry Watt and David Bruce Watt. It was later mortgaged to Alfred Greatback Glover who gained ownership in 1884 after the Watts defaulted. It was later let to Jane Board of Ellerslie and sold to her in 1896. The land was later subdivided.

The Department of Education starting acquiring land for a secondary school during the period of the first Labour government. Once secondary education became more accessible after the abolition of the proficiency certificate in 1937, the department set its sights on building a super-school of superior quality — a ‘landmark’ in Ministry of Works’ parlance.

Penrose High School is said to have been designed with the view that it could serve as a hospital in the event of war (it came onto the drawingboard at the start of World War II). Its staff facilities, accessways and corridors, far more generous in size than for most New Zealand secondary schools, certainly give the impression that it was planned for another use.

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