A Papamoa school is rubbishing claims that vital fundraising money is being allocated to fixing a sunshade issue as opposed to funding further sun smart options.

In the last 18 months, Golden Sands School has been working towards installing sunshades for the whole school after various fundraising efforts.

Children at Golden Sands School. Photo: File.

The state primary school opened in February 2011, and as of October 2014, had 339 students.

But a concerned parent, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes the hard-earned fundraising dollars aren't going anywhere except towards remediating issues with the original installation.

According to the parent, two weeks after the first set of four sunshades were installed back in 2013, one of the large timber posts snapped, forcing two of the sails to be removed immediately.

Last winter, a new company was contracted to install a replacement steel post and erect the sunshades again, only for another timber post to snap bringing the sunshades down yet again.

They said: 'The school won't tell us why, but the company who originally installed it never came back and another company replaced the post with a steel one. This process took nearly a year.

'This is very dangerous and still to this day the junior children only have half the sails to sit under and are exposed to the sun as well as flapping sails.”

It is the school's vision to install a further four sunshades for their new Mahy and Blake [senior] block, bolstered by a $4000 grant from the Cancer Society.

Along with this grant, the funds raised through parent voluntary donations, calendar sales and the school disco will be enough to complete the project, states the school's October 2014 newsletter.

But the parent says: 'My fear is all the money we have raised is being chewed by the first contractor and the rest for the next set has been chewed up by the next contractor. We still don't have sails and now we don't have any senior sails.

'The senior school doesn't even have anything, and the students are still sitting unprotected from the sun to eat their lunch.”

However, Golden Sands School principal Melanie Taylor refutes these accusations, saying all future funding and grants is being allocated to the next four sunshades, including voluntary donations.

'The only reason it is not in yet is because we are waiting for the fabric to come into the country,” explains Melanie.

She says the issue of erecting the original sails again with replaced timber is 'under control” with the school just awaiting the construction of new timber poles.

When questioned about how often such malfunctions or issues may occur, Melanie isn't aware of any other incidents.

'I have not been aware of it happening in the past but I believe we are in a high wind area,” she adds.

'We spoke to the cancer society and they gave us some recommendations going forward and that's what we have done.”