Unlike most New Zealand high schools there is no uniform requirement and students may address their teachers on a first name basis.

Over 92% of students leave with qualifications and a substantially greater proportion than the national average go on to graduate from a New Zealand university.

[9] Principal Brent Ingram lobbied the Ministry of Education in the 1990s to have the main building earthquake-strengthened.

The double-brick building dating from 1924 was an earthquake risk, as reports first identified in the 1960s.

The building came through the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake reasonably unharmed and, according to Ingram, "didn't lose a brick".