Garin College Curriculum Overview

This page contains the curriculum overview and a few suggestions for you to consider when making course selections for the future.

For how to choose your courses select the appropriate page for your year level from the left hand side under Useful Information.

Remember: Make your own choices 

Things to think about:

  • What are you interested in?
  • What are you good at?
  • What do you enjoy?
  • If you know what you want to do/study when you leave school - what subjects do they suggest?
  • You may want to log into and "Careers Central" to check the exploration of future pathways you have been doing.
  • If you do not know what you want to do in your future, do not worry, that is extremely common. Keep your options broad.

Who can you talk to for advice?

  • Parents and caregivers
  • Teachers
  • School Deans
  • Garin's Careers Advisor


The Garin College Curriculum

Garin College offers a broad curriculum, which provides opportunities for all students to be successful across a variety of areas.

In year 9 and 10 students work in a core class and study a number of compulsory subjects. This ensures that students are covering the 9 learning areas of our New Zealand Curriculum, and also helps prepare them to make informed choices about subjects moving forward.

As students move into the senior school and study towards NCEA, they are able to select more specialised subjects. Students, with guidance and support from whānau and school, build a programme which meets their needs and helps prepare them for their journey beyond school – whether that is to continue study, or training, or to move directly into paid employment.

For some students this may involve enrolling in our local Trades Academy – a vocationally focused programme where students gain trade skills while earning NCEA credits.

As we are a Catholic Special Character school, all students study Religious Education at all year levels as part of their academic programme.

Garin College works hard to cater for the different learning needs of our students. Those requiring extra learning support are well looked after by our capable staff.

Our gifted and talented programme also provides extension opportunities and challenges for students.

We are a BYOD school. The use of devices, as one of many learning tools, is embedded throughout our College.

Planning your pathway to further study after school is really important. Mrs Helliwell has put together this document which describes the best preparation you can do for tertiary courses that Garin students commonly go on to study.