Principals Reflection 

This year I am involved in several Professional Learning Communities.

Last week I attended the nationwide Executive Principal Programme in Tauranga. It was very rewarding and also special because for several years Tauranga (Papamoa specifically) was our home, and it is one of the most beautiful parts of our country in my humble opinion.

This programme is designed to help our school continue to develop leadership focused on improving leadership capacity, cultural competency and student learning outcomes. This is a great opportunity that combines the best elements of a sabbatical with the benefit of having a personalised professional growth programme aligned to our school focuses. 

Other leaders enrolled in the programme are very experienced and come from a variety of schools throughout Aotearoa, including high schools, private schools, rural schools and primary schools from as far as Dunedin through to Whangarei. It was hugely inspirational and I am looking forward to our next gathering. 

I was pleasantly surprised to meet my high school English teacher - Mr Preece. He was one of the few teachers I remember as a high school teenager, and now we are both school principals. He is principal of Ashburton High School.

During my absence our school was left in very capable leadership hands. 

A huge thank you to Mrs Vaoiva, Mrs Luxmoore and our hard working staff who remained confident, calm and capable in my absence. I can always trust everything will function exactly as expected when I am away.

Thank you to the Team - they are all individually and collectively awesome.