Sitting at the southern edge of a quadrangle of impressive school buildings the Waitaki Boys’ High School Junior High School (Former), represents the government’s educational experiment with attached Junior High Schools in the 1920s. Along with its sister school at Waitaki Girls’ High School, it was one of the earlier attached schools opening within existing high schools, a system that was later replaced with separate intermediate schools.

The Junior High School building was the first of two major building projects at the school in the 1920s. In the 1920s, the government was experimenting with reorganizing primary education, introducing an Intermediate/Junior High School system. Junior High Schools had already been set up in Canada, Britain and the United States, and it was hoped that these schools would prepare pupils for secondary school. In 1922, a separate Junior School at Kingsland in Auckland was among the first to open. Oamaru was chosen as an experiment of ‘attached’ junior schools – with Waitaki Girls’ High and Waitaki Boys’ High Junior Schools added to these schools’ existing departments (rather than functioning as independent schools as was the case in larger centres). The Junior High School was a two-storeyed stone building located on the south side of the quadrangle to the rear of the main buildings. Although due to open in February 1925, the Junior High School opening was delayed until April because of a polio epidemic. One hundred and sixty boys in four classes attended on opening day. The building itself was not completed until later in the year. In its final form, the building had two ‘very large class-rooms and a laboratory and store-room, while upstairs were four class-rooms and an apartment that in due course became a special library for the Junior High School.’ The Junior High School was extended in 1936. The Junior High School operated until 1962, when a purpose built intermediate school opened in Oamaru. After this time, the building was incorporated into Waitaki Boys’ High School. In 1996, a new auditorium was added to the former Junior High School

In 2015, the former Junior High School remains one of the significant buildings within historic Waitaki Boys’ High School.