Last updated October 2026
Aurora College is a state, co-educational secondary school for Years 7 to 13 at 234 Regent Street, Invercargill. It opened in 2005 and had 578 students on its roll at 1 September 2026.
It has no home zone, so any student can apply. The school’s website sets out separate learning programmes for each junior year group and for the senior school, along with ESOL and inclusive education.
Senior students can apply for its Service Academy, a military-style programme run with the New Zealand Army’s Youth Life Skills team, and the school runs a range of sports and cultural activities.
At a glance
- Principal
- Craig Taylor
- Address
- 234 Regent Street, Invercargill
- Phone
- 03 211 6040
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 578 students who identify with each group. Students can name more than one, so these add up to more than 100%.
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.
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 2023, written soon after a new principal started.
ERO noted positive relationships in classrooms, teachers who know their students well, a steady focus on student wellbeing and growing use of culturally responsive teaching. It also recorded concerns about whether the school had enough good-quality achievement information, and whether it was using it well to set targets, track progress and judge the impact of changes.
ERO recommended that the Ministry of Education give the school extra tailored support, and the Ministry is working alongside it.
The school’s priorities are to build senior and middle leadership, to put in place a clear literacy and numeracy pathway through the junior years, and to strengthen how it gathers and uses student data to plan learning that meets each student’s needs.
Read the ERO reports for Aurora College
Enrolling
Aurora College has no home zone, so any student can apply. Families apply through the online enrolment form on the school’s website, and the school then gets in touch to arrange a meeting.
Schools nearby
In Heidelberg
Aurora College is in Heidelberg. Our suburb guide covers what it is like to live there, with parks, places and local businesses.
Read our Heidelberg guide →Questions parents ask
Is Aurora 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?
578 at 1 Sep 2026.
Does it ask for donations?
No. It is in the donation scheme, so it only asks for donations for school camps.
What is its Equity Index?
545. 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, 45% 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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