Bethlehem College

Kids love the school! Teachers are great, love the feeling around the campus. No complaints 🙂

Good school that allowed me to learn without needing to worry about other pressures that exist much more prevalently at other schools in Tauranga.

First with the good things. The students were generally very nice and welcoming, and making friends were quite easy and I enjoyed hanging out with them and taking classes with them.

However, with that being said, the teachers were very lacklustre in terms of their quality of teaching. Some teachers also seemed very biased and hypocritical. Also sometimes they put their beliefs/religion first over the learning that students get. For example, in biology when we are learning about evolution, teachers tend to try and avoid the topic or sometimes make the class awkward in way by saying "well thats what some people believe in but actually God created us"

Overall, my experience at this school was quite mediocre and definitely failed my expectation going into my senior years

I’ve experienced racism a lot throughout my years of attending Bethlehem College it is not a school for cultured kids, I’ve gotten talked down upon by teachers, students and even parents of students that attend BC the community is divided and now since they have removed the normal kgroup a that consisted of yr 10-13 you do not get to experience friendships with other kids in the different year levels

The school it horrible. The don't care about the students.

The worst school in my life People say is it a Christian school but some time people always say bad word like FU word and s word and so that why is not Christian school

after i come to this school i start to get depression and anxiety and the school just what to get as mash kid as they what nonmatter how bad the kid is they just what more money they don't care who the bullying is they just what the money they what to do that after one year i started geingt sad and depression and i start to say why my mum sand me to this fucking school because of the bully and the mean kid i am a dumb person that always get not achieved of every test and people say why you always get not achieved and they started bully me that why i started to get depression and THIS SCHOOL RUINED MY LIFE FOR A LONG TIME, and i started to cry allots but i don't told my mum to worry about so i not told her.

The teachers put smiles on our faces even if your in a bad mood. Everyone is helpful,
I don’t know any bullying issues at this school. You get such a lovely welcome and it includes Christian values. There are so any outstanding opportunities at this school (e.g sports camp, BOT role, head boy, head girl and many others. The head teacher is so kind, so are the teachers. I have learnt so much from this school. Everyone is included and encouraged.

Some of the comments here are incredibly stupid. if you do not want to be taught christian values then do not go to a christian school. the school does have a problem with homophobia but I personally have never witnessed any and most student and teachers are quite respectful, anyone who does not agree with LGBTQIA++ does not talk about it and mostly people just keep thier personal beliefs abut it to themselves. the school is very good and the teachers are very good at teaching and helping students to strive in all aspects of learning, especially academic.

this school is the worst they do nothing and if you send your kids here they will get bullied and abused and they do nothing

As a Māori student, Bethlehem College did not offer a positive, safe space for education. First and foremost, if you are considering sending your Māori kids to BC, please don't. Racism is hugely prevalent within the school amongst both the student body and staff who ignore and more often than not encourage students with their own racist views/behaviors. The world views of students and staff at Bethlehem College are very limited, producing a mass mentality that leaves Māori and non-Pākeha feeling marginalised in a white-dominated school. The overwhelming Māori experience of BC is overt racism, zero cultural competency/safety and having to take on the exhausting role of token Māori - even token brown person with zero acknowledgement.

BC is a christian school! reading some of the other responses to this are silly, why go to a christian school if you don't want to at least be respectful during any christian parts of the education at BC.
Secondly, yes bullying is a problem, but that is not so much to do with the school itself (although it could help out more in certain situations) its is mainly based on the students who could be attending any school, bullying kids anywhere at any school but just happen to be at BC.
Yes, BC is expensive, but it is also a semi private schools it is not fully government funded, and therefor must cost a little more than your average school. However that doesn't mean that rich kids are automatically going to do good and get the highest grades, grades are not based on wealth, only the pure intelligence of a student.
Now I cannot deny that I have had my fair share of creeps as teachers at BC, but i'm sure that is bound to happen anywhere (and if you were truly taken advantage of, molested, or touched inappropriately in any way, I am very sorry that this happened to you, and this is not something BC stands for and definitely something they should be taking as a more serious issue, instead of just moving teachers around.)
Overall, BC is full of mostly amazing students who are there to be friendly and help everyone to be their best, as well as teachers that surround you trying to help you thrive in this environment. The teachers don't care and most don't show favouritism towards the more academic students, they're all just there to see you succeed in whatever you choose to do.
BC has been such an important part of my learning and growing into the young person I am today. It has helped me learn, fully supporting me, and help my journey with faith and God grow continuously. I wish that anyone coming to this school after me will have an experience as good as, or even better than mine, and I truly pray for anyone who may not have had the same experience as me <3

this school has given me depression and anxiety. everyone is so mean to each other even if they are friends, and talk about people behind their back. the teachers are so rude and homophobic, racist, sexist, etc. they shove religion down your throat and the teachers show such disrespect to the students. everyone who leaves this school that i know have been feeling much better then they did at bethlehem college. do not attend your child to this school.

As much as I enjoyed this school in years 7-11, I soon realised it was not as good as it seemed. The complete lack of sex-education left me totally unprepared for the REAL world. The school’s naive assumption that pre-marital inter course isn’t rife among their students mean they are greatly increasing the chances of their students contracting an STI or having a teen pregnancy, and for a school that is so adamantly pro-life, it seems rather ironic. BC is stuck at least a few decades in the past, and unfortunately, they seem unwilling to change. My favourite example of this is in our last week as year 13s, we were called in for a year group assembly for what we soon realised was about rape. In this assembly, one of the senior councillors (who is female) proceeded to tell us that girls should “dress right for the night” at University, then adding that “boys can’t help themselves”. If victim blaming is BC’s response to sexual assault and rape, that pretty much sums up the time-warp that this school seems to be trapped in.

The other reviews on here are ridiculous. Nobody pays for grades, nobody is molested.
The only true thing is bullying. It can be an issue, as with every other school.
The Christian aspect of the school is what I struggled with the most. They do somewhat force the Christian practices onto you (being forced to pray, religious education is mandatory etc).
The teachers are some of the best you will ever meet. They are caring and accomodating to everybody, low grades or high grades, they are constantly going to try help you.
Some kids are a bit snobby due to their wealth, but not overwhelmingly so.
Overall, a good school.

Bunch of rich kids. I’ve been to a lot of schools in my life time, none of which has ever been so terrible as Bethlehem college. The parents pay for grades. If you have a parent on the board or a parent that has given money to the school, you will always get an award. They have an award called Christian character, doesn’t matter how nice you are, you must have wealthy parents in order to get it. They are corrupt and less Christian then most non-Christian schools. The kids are nice, but with wealth comes a lot of arrogance and snobs, so don’t expect many nice people. The teachers are under qualified, they hire them more for being a Christian then their actually skill in teaching. I had to sit with many teachers for multiple years who just had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t even know the topic they were teaching. I’ve been to six schools, none of which had the guts to not only be corrupt, but to not even bother hiding the fact. I guess this is the reason why so many students and teachers are leaving every year. It claims to be a Christian school when less than 30% of students are actually Christian and many lie about their religion just to get into the school. Don’t get me wrong, I had some great camps there and some very rare and special teachers, but all together it is an awful school. If you are a boy go to boys high, if you are a girl consider all schools. In conclusion, Bethlehem College I will forever remember as the worst school I have ever had the misfortune of attending in my entire lifetime.

It is an ok school most of the time.

On the outside it looks like the perfect school, but what people don’t see is the horrible bullying that goes on inside and no one nose before it’s to late. I was bullied by majority of my year and by the time I left I was depressed and then later that year I had an eating disorder. I had always been a happy kid nothing bad ever happens to me till I went to that school. Also if you haven’t been going to that school since year 1 people will gang up on you. I had a racist teacher , another teacher that bullied students, even some parents bullying in sports teams. I would never recommend this school to anyone! I know I am not alone in this view of this school , I know off many other students leaving for the same reason as I did , and now I’m at a new school that was rated worse that Bethlehem collage everyone has been nothing but kind to me , such a big difference between these to school and there is such a better vibe at this school than that one. Send you child here if you want there life to be ruined.

Good, fun , great learning experience and camps . But expensive .

Despite what most ungrateful teenagers might say, they don’t truly appreciate how lucky they are to go to this school.

I have had an amazing experience at Bethlehem Collage. I have had so many opportunities that I would never had though if before. For example we competed in a global competition in Hawaii. We traveled to the South Island to play Jazz in the Jazz festival. We study things that are really relevant while still having fun. The students are good once you get to know them. The teachers are amazing. They’re all really friendly but you’ll find a few of them are really friendly and are really funny and a joy to be around even after school has finished. We have an amazing Performance Arts Centre where we do school productions once every two years. It’s just an all round great place to be. I’d happily do another year there