Students of Whakatāne school that lost half its classrooms in a blaze left 'heartbroken'

Eight-year-old Haylee Vanstone said she was in tears this morning.

Students of a Whakatāne school that's lost half its classrooms in a blaze overnight say they're "heartbroken".

Fire crews from across the Bay of Plenty were called to Apanui School in the early hours of the morning, with 45 firefighters responding at the peak of the fire.

Members of the school community have been gathering on the street nearby today, to see the damage.

Among them, eight-year-old Haylee Vanstone, who said she was in tears this morning.

Her mum Rochelle telling her, "they'll fix it".

"How do you know? It's all burnt down and stuff", she said, looking towards the school.

It lost half its classrooms in the fire.

"I feel sorry for my friends that are older than me and their classes are really new and some of them have lost their stationery and all of that."

The fire's destroyed a whole block of the school, including eight classrooms, the library, IT hub and a newly renovated admin block.

"Part of it has been a leaky building project that was about two weeks away from being completed," said school principal Simon Akroyd.

Rochelle Vanstone said her daughter's class was meant to be moving into a new room when the renovations were complete.

Student Jack Redaelli, said, "it's really sad they worked so hard on that building and then it just burnt down".

"I mostly feel sorry for the workers that've been working here over Christmas," Haylee Vanstone said.

As well as the nearly completed renovations, there're a number of freshly completed school improvements that've been lost, including decks on the back classrooms and new shade sails.

"I'm wondering how it got on fire," Redaelli said.

The cause is still under investigation.

The school community's thanking the fire crews who did their best to spare what they could.

"It's pretty sad," said year four student Max Ferguson, "probably going to have get a new classroom".

Ty Cochrane, another pupil, said, "it's sad, I like my classroom"

Half of the school's roll of 400 are now without a classroom.

Akroyd said, "The biggest issue we've got is our main power box is gone and everything coming into the school in terms of fibre and what not is wiped out".

He says staff will be in touch with parents about what will happen in the week ahead.

"It's not the way we want to start the school year, we've been back for two days and we were looking forward to nice smooth year after Covid last year."

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