Principal's Page

Kia Ora Friends

I was away in Christchurch last week attending the New Zealand Principals' Federation Annual Conference.

I was the principal of Kaiapoi Borough School for eight years before taking over at Western Heights School at the start of 2014. This was during the two big Canterbury earthquakes. At that time, my wife was the principal of Richmond School on the east side of Christchurch. Both our schools were badly affected, Jacq's so badly, they ended up closing her school down, as her community had been literally flattened.

It was, therefore, particularly interesting to see how the city of Christchurch was recovering. The answer is really well though there is still a long way to go.

The conference was attended by 930 Primary principals, a bit over half of the total number of Primary principals in New Zealand.

I learned a great deal from the featured speakers and workshop leaders. 

Kaila Colbin - The future we’re living into - The call to courage

Kaila Colbin spoke of the dramatic implications of the changes coming our way and offered some profound insights into what’s truly important as we prepare ourselves and our learners to adapt and thrive in a dynamically changing world.

Dr Cheryl Doig - Navigating the Future: Rips, Rollercoasters and Realities

It’s about weaving past, present and future together and acknowledging heritage, whānau and what it means to be uniquely human. Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past.

Dr Farah Palmer - Leading from the Front Row – the good, the bad and the ugly!

Dr Farrah shared her journey after retiring from a decade in the Black Ferns in 2016, her contributions in other rugby roles and her academic career at Massey University. Farah used rugby analogies and a wahine Māori perspective to challenge dominant narratives related to Māori, women and girls, sport and leadership. She demonstrated how kindness to ourselves and others is important in the process of lifelong learning, will encourage our audience to ‘take that space’ if opportunities arise, to accept failure is part of learning, and when in leadership roles, we should ‘pass it back' (give others opportunities) and ‘kick it forward’ (be visionary).

 Te Kahu Rolleston - Waka Eke Noa Workshop 

A Maori writer, poet, and storyteller. Using culture and identity builds self-confidence, learning, reflection, engagement and success in writing. 

Dr Siouxsie Wiles - Beyond the pandemic: where to from here? 

Every day we are bombarded with ill-informed influencers and ‘fake news’ and are manipulated by social media algorithms. Schools and teachers have always been important, but now more than ever, they play a vital role in preparing our children with the critical thinking skills, science and digital literacy they need to navigate our post-pandemic world safely.  Reflecting on the lessons, she has learned and sharing her vision for how Aotearoa’s schools can be the leaders the country needs in such uncertain times.  

Emeritus Professor, Dr Russell Bishop - Leading to the Northeast. How to solve the Literacy Crisis in two years. 

How school principals can develop a successful institutional infrastructure in their schools in ways that will support teachers to become successful literacy teachers using GPILSEO. 

• Goals: A clear focus on improving the engagement, participation and achievement of the students being targeted by understanding, developing and implementing a pedagogy proven to be effective.
• Pedagogy: A means of implementing this proven pedagogy consistently and with integrity so that teachers and, in turn, all students can understand and implement the new practices. This requires teachers to understand the new theories of practice in their day-to-day classroom relationships and interactions with students and teaching colleagues.
• Institutions: A consideration that pedagogical reform might require new institutions (changes to systems or structures) in classrooms. For example, desks in rows might not be the best system for undertaking a more relational, dialogical approach to pedagogy.
• Leadership: A relational, dialogical approach to pedagogy may see different and more distributed opportunities for leadership to emerge. For example, it will promote people as being initiators of their own learning and who take responsibility and leadership for supporting the learning of others.
• Spread: New classroom relationships and interactions will need the means to spread to include all students (across classrooms and across year levels) and all teachers (across departments/faculties) in the school.
• Evidence: A means whereby the progress of all students can be monitored to inform the ongoing changes in instruction. The gathering and examination of classroom evidence provides practice.
• Ownership: New understandings and practices must be owned and understood by all members of the school, and they must begin to move out into the community.

Scott Robertson - Leadership!  There’s a story to be told! 

What does a leader need to do to take a team to the top and keep it there? Scott Robertson says his leadership is about the stories!  This was a unique opportunity to gain insight into the leadership style of one of New Zealand’s most influential coaches.

On a personal note, I can understand how and why the Crusaders (sorry to mention them in Blues territory) are and have been so successful. The level of attention to detail, the breadth, depth and the scope of approaches and tools used to bring about an unwavering, all-encompassing focus on continued success just blew me away. It gave me shivers.

If you are still with me at this point, I will also be away all next week at a Pacifica Principals' Conference. I will be presenting at this conference and am looking forward very much to being culturally immersed and deepening my understanding of Pacifica learners and pedagogies.

It means I don't get to meet our children each morning or help with our traffic each afternoon. It also means giving out Birthday cards early and missing out on daily interactions with children, staff and parents. These are all really important to me, and hopefully to our school and community, so I sincerely apologise I need to be away.

Finally, on this point, my deep and sincere thanks to ALL our staff team at Western Heights. They keep everything humming in my absence, and I am truly blessed to be able to leave our school in such capable and caring hands.

As always - if you have questions or concerns about anything school-related - email me at macash@mac.com, and I will get back to you asap.

My very best regards to you all,

Ash Maindonald

Principal.