Last updated October 2026
Aquinas College is a state-integrated, co-educational secondary school for Years 7 to 13 at 183 Pyes Pa Road, Pyes Pa, Tauranga. It opened in 2003 and had 833 students on its roll at 1 September 2026.
It has no home zone, so any student can apply. Its site describes a Catholic special character that runs through school life, with prayer every day, weekly Mass in the chapel, retreats, a peer-led youth ministry for senior students and Religious Education at every year level, while Years 7 and 8 learn in homerooms with specialist teachers for the arts, technology and languages. It also lists kapa haka, Pasifika language weeks, an auditioned choir, concert and jazz bands, drama productions, sport, free buses to most suburbs and a programme for international students with homestays.
At a glance
- Principal
- Matt Dalton
- Address
- 183 Pyes Pa Road, Pyes Pa, Tauranga
- Phone
- 07 543 2400
Home zone
No home zone: any student can apply to enrol. If more students apply than there are places, the school decides how places are offered.
NCEA results
School leavers with NCEA Level 2 or above, compared with all New Zealand school leavers.
This school New Zealand
School leavers are students who left school that year, whatever year level they left from.
Who goes here
Share of the 833 students who identify with each group. Students can name more than one, so these add up to more than 100%.
24 international students
MELAA: Middle Eastern, Latin American and African.
Stand-downs and suspensions
Cases per 1,000 students in 2025, adjusted for the ages of the school’s students, compared with all New Zealand schools.
Suspensions: fewer than 5 cases in 2025, so no rate is shown.
These measure how a school responds to behaviour, and schools set their own thresholds, so they are not a measure of how students behave.
What ERO found
The Education Review Office’s latest report on the school is a Te Ara Huarau School Profile Report from March 2024. This kind of report sets out what ERO and the school will evaluate together, here how well the curriculum is planned, taught and reviewed to meet the strengths and needs of every student and lift their progress and achievement.
ERO noted a strategic direction the school community shaped together, high expectations grounded in the school’s well-developed Catholic character, thorough use of data to support fair outcomes for all students, and well-established self-review.
From here the school plans to build inclusive classrooms grounded in Catholic values, develop teaching that is culturally responsive and adapts to students’ needs, and weave mātauranga Māori through the curriculum.
Read the ERO reports for Aquinas College
Enrolling
Aquinas College is a state-integrated Catholic school, so it gives enrolment preference to families with an established Catholic connection, who need a Preference of Enrolment Certificate from their parish. The school also welcomes applications from families who are not Catholic, but these non-preference places are limited and depend on how many preference applications it receives.
Attendance dues set by the Catholic Integrated Schools Office apply to every student, and the school also asks families for a voluntary contribution. The school publishes its application details on its enrolment page each year, and international students apply through its international pages.
Schools nearby
In Pyes Pa
Aquinas College is in Pyes Pa. Our suburb guide covers what it is like to live there, with parks, places and local businesses.
Read our Pyes Pa guide →Questions parents ask
Is Aquinas College zoned?
No. It has no home zone, so any student can apply to enrol.
What years does it teach?
Years 7 to 13.
How many students go there?
833 at 1 Sep 2026.
Does it ask for donations?
It may. It is not in the donation scheme, so it can ask families for donations.
What is its Equity Index?
402. The Ministry of Education’s Equity Index estimates the socio-economic barriers a school’s students face, from 344 (fewest) to 569 (most). It is used to share out funding, not as a measure of quality.
How did its school leavers do in NCEA?
In 2025, 97.3% of its school leavers had NCEA Level 2 or above, compared with 77.8% of all New Zealand school leavers.
School details and roll: Ministry of Education school directory, 22 Oct 2026 (CC BY 4.0). NCEA results, roll history and stand-downs: Education Counts, school leavers 2023 to 2025, stand-downs 2025, rolls 2021 to 2025 (CC BY 4.0). Updated automatically when the Ministry publishes new data.
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