John Pipe, a respected school leader and published history author, has been appointed as Onehunga High School’s new Archivist. A former student, teacher, and Deputy Principal at OHS, he brings a lifetime of educational leadership and historical expertise to this role.

John Pipe has recently been appointed as the Onehunga High School Archivist.

John was a student at Onehunga High School from 1964 until 1967 and also came back to OHS as a teacher from 1999 to 2003.

He has been teaching History since 1975 until his retirement from the classroom. He was Head of History at Kaipara College, Head of History and Social Science at Avondale College and Head of History and then Deputy Principal at Onehunga High School. From there he went to the Auckland University Secondary Advisory Service as the Social Science Adviser for Auckland and Northland. His final formal secondary school role was as the Deputy Principal of Teaching and Learning at Mount Albert Grammar School. But he still managed to teach a Year 13 History class.

His role as both an historian and an adviser has seen him involved nationally as the foundation secretary of the New Zealand History Teachers’ Association, as an examiner of School Certificate, a marker of Bursary History, a Scholarship Examiner and a lecturer of students training to be History teachers. He has been involved with the Auckland History Teachers’ Association since the late 1970s.

He co-wrote a textbook ‘ The Road to Sarajevo’ in 1996 which has been used extensively in Year 12 courses. He wrote his own course books for the New Zealand History courses that he taught. He has run several courses offering guidance for Levels 1, 2 and 3 of NCEA and also led courses that prepare teachers to support their students in preparing for Scholarship History exams.  He has also run extensive course on the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand society for several schools, Rotary and U3A groups.

 He is now the Onehunga High School Archivist and is looking forward to this role with us.