Our History

Hillview Christian School was established in 1977 by the Evangelistic Church to provide a Christian education which they believed was vital for the balance and growth of their children, both academically and spiritually. For the first 15 years, the school was known as St Martins Private School and the school was open only to children from families that were part of the founding church.

The Church underwent a significant change in culture from 1990 which brought many changes, including a change of name to South City Christian Centre. In 1994 the school, for the first time, accepted pupils from outside of the church that founded the school. This precipitated a name change to St Martins Christian School in 1995 and then in 2001 St Martins changed to Hillview to avoid confusion with the nearby St Martins School.

Since integration there has been a substantial increase in the school roll, from 84 in 1995 to just under our current roll cap of 520. Hillview is an average socio-economic school and the range and numbers of different ethnic groups is very reflective of New Zealand society. Approximately 10% of our school population is of Maori heritage and more than 5% are of Pacific Island descent. The school has a decile rating of 7 which means that we have a mixed socio-economic parent community. The school community is principally from the east and south of Christchurch city and a wide cross-section of Churches are represented by our school families.