St Paul's College, Auckland  St Paul's College is a Catholic secondary school for boys owned by the Marist Brothers and located in the central Auckland suburb of Ponsonby on a spacious 7.3 hectare campus. The Marist Brothers first opened a school on the site (Sacred Heart College) in 1903. St Paul's College (named after the apostle Paul) commenced operations in 1955 and celebrates its 65th anniversary in 2020. The college, which became a State-integrated school in 1982, makes full use of its extensive grounds in sporting and other activities. The school offers the standard intermediate and secondary school curriculum leading, for the senior year levels, to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement assessment system (NCEA). The school has good pass rates in NCEA. The college excels in sport, especially Rugby football and in Polynesian and other cultural activities, notably in the annual ASB Polyfest competitions. The Marist Brothers, the proprietors of the school, maintain a small community of non-teaching brothers on the campus to encourage the continuation of the Marist charism. The Marist Brothers arrived in Auckland in 1885 and began operations on the site of previous schools in Pitt St in central Auckland. In the 1890s they began teaching secondary classes there but it became evident that the Pitt St site was too small and noisy. By 1900 negotiations were underway with Bishop Lenihan who arranged for the brothers to lease part of a block of land of 48 acres (10 hectares) near Cox's Creek in Ponsonby. This land had been gifted to the Diocese of Auckland in 1851 by Hugh Coolahan, an Auckland Catholic businessman. He had come from Ireland and had prospered during the early days of Auckland's commercial development. He had been a member of the building committee for St Patrick's Church (later the cathedral)  and was a founding member of the board of St Peter's School in Pitt St. The Marist Brothers leased 7.3 hectares of the land at £30 a year for a 42-year term. The school, Sacred Heart College, was opened on 21 June 1903. The first building was a large three storied building with a prominent encompassing verandas. It was built from brick resting on concrete foundations. The bricks were coated in white plaster which later became grey with age. This building was a prominent landmark and became the main school building of St Paul's College until it was demolished in 1980. The site required much development. A gully ran through the middle of the property and the land was very unevenly contoured.