History

Unlimited began life as a school in January 2003. We started with 40 foundation students and 7 staff. In those days we were based in Southern Star House, on level 1. Our first year was characterised by a sense of adventure and pioneering as we created our "special character" from the ground up.

Our second year brought almost a doubling of student numbers, and an increase in staff members. Richard Belton, who had begun in 2003 as one of three co-directors left for work with the Ministry of Education, leaving Vince Dobbs and Gill Heald as remaining directors.

With the growth in personnel came the ability for staff to offer a wider range of learning opportunities. We also moved into our second community on the top floor of Southern Star House. Work began on building our Northern Tower across Cashel Mall.

2005 saw staff and students move into Northern Tower, we now had close to 200 students on our roll, and had to turn hopeful applicants away every week.

The diversity of learning continued to grow, and with the addition of new and flexible space, both students and staff enjoyed the chance to design innovative teaching and learning opportunities that made the best use of our new space.

2005, also heralded the arrival of Unlimited's dedicated digital media arm - Downtown Digital. Located in our third 'basement' campus, Downtown Digital was charged with bringing industry standard learning opportunities to students in film and video production, computer animation, game design and computer programming.

We ended 2005 with our first successful Education Review Office (ERO) review.

By 2006, Unlimited had 280 students working and learning in 5 different communities, each located on a floor in Northern Tower and Southern Star House. The development of staff and student leadership was established, and the community worked apace to deal with the challenges to our special character that seemed to arise from significant role growth. The Ten Tenets of our special character were formalised and displayed.

In 2006 we held our first year of external examinations as an accredited exam centre with NZQA.

2007 saw another year of massive growth; heaps more students and brand new staff. The first year of community camps was introduced. Our student body grew in diversity, and this brought with it renewed understanding of tolerance and acceptance - characteristics of our school we are very proud of. At the end of the year we said good-bye to one of our founding directors - Gill Heald - as she resigned her position, but thankfully stuck around to assist with staff professional development.

This year (2008) saw us finally reach our Ministry-set full roll of 400 pupils. Once again our community grew at every level. We celebrate the unique strengths of Unlimited - a school literally without peer... witness the success of the Three-penny Opera, our amazing outdoor education programme, the diversity of Learner Directed Experiences, the growth of NCEA assessment opportunities, and our widening learning support programme.

At the end of 2008 we farewelled our founding (and full-time) director Vince Dobbs. In all irony, Vince has probably been held in higher regard in Australian education circles than he has in his own country... and in the end the constant offers of employment by the Victorian State Education Ministry has lured him across the ditch. Vince's legacy will remain however. So much of the special character and everyday practice reflects his thinking and philosophy that it will be a long time before the school loses the resonance of his considerable intellect, enthusiasm and humour.