Intermediate schools are located in the more thickly populated areas to provide specialist facilities for standards 5 and 6 (Forms I and II), by concentrating these forms from several schools in the area into one school. The buildings consist of the standard primary classroom units with the addition of specialist rooms for woodwork, metalwork, homecraft, clothing, art and craft and nature study. An assembly hall is also included in the school complex.

District high schools, which are secondary departments attached to primary schools in country areas, and high schools, have existed in New Zealand from early times of European settlement. Many have grown from modest beginnings into some of the leading schools in New Zealand today. As with the primary schools, they have developed with the increase of population and the changing needs of the education system. From schools where the main curriculum was based on the “three Rs”, with the addition of some science and craft work, generally taught in small overcrowded classrooms, there have now appeared the multi-course post-primary schools of today with the specialist accommodation, teaching aids, equipment and facilities of modern times. Many of the older schools have developed individually, but approximately half of the post-primary schools in existence today have been established as new schools only during the last 20 years.