At this time of year we are normally looking backwards, at our work last year, and looking forwards, making plans for the rest of the year based on the data we have collected from last year. Mark Twain famously said: “there are lies, damned lies and statistics” and I’m conscious of this whenever I collect […]
This year has brought challenges. I have detailed these in previous messages. I expect there are more in store in relation to COVID next year when we are living with it in our community. It is hard to know what that will look like but it will affect attendance at school for teachers and students […]
At this time of year we would normally have a range of celebrations as our seniors and, in particular, our departing year 13 class move into exam mode. These events haven’t been possible, in their normal form, because the Ministry of Education sent advice to schools at the end of September which was a shift […]
In his end of term Principal’s message, Dominic pays tribute to friend and colleague, Mike Neville.
It is the end of term 2 and I feel there are a lot of tired students and tired teachers around so the break is much needed. Term 2 is a time when our students participate in an astonishingly wide range of activities. If you are a regular reader of our weekly wrap-ups you will […]
I attended a Principals’ conference in Blenheim this week with an interesting list of speakers and themes. Given the events of the last 15 months, the two strongest themes were wellbeing and, not surprisingly, leadership. John Peachey addressed both of these aspects in his keynote comparing the Everest climbs of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine […]
I met with a group of Wellington Principals yesterday and a representative from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). The meeting was about the service that NZQA provides for schools. You may or may not know that an NCEA review has been underway for some time with the intention of rolling out new standards and […]
A year ago in this message I was talking about our roll growth and the future plans that were in place to address a growing school. Since then, the Ministry has put in place four classrooms on the edge of our field to ease some of the congestion and these have been welcomed by the […]
When I became Principal in 2017, I wanted to give greater priority to Te Ao Māori – living in the Māori world. I read an interesting piece by another Principal a little while back – Perry Rush, who is the President of the New Zealand Principal’s Federation. He was writing about attending a Māori Principals’ conference […]
Kia ora koutou, We have had a lovely day at school today and the support offered by other schools, outside agencies, ex colleagues and ex students and of course, our community, has been heartening and inspiring. I say inspiring because incidents like yesterday’s are very complex. What we know is that a person felt that […]
