Celebrating our People:
Our school hosted the 'Imagine It' national conference last week. 200 educators from all over New Zealand attended our school in person, and another 170 attended the conference online.
Annette Pram and Nicole Spanhake led conference workshops. Annette is growing a national reputation as a leader in Structured Literacy and a Structured Approach to Play-Based Learning. Nicole is a rising star in the field of Bush school and natural environment-based learning.
I received the following email from the conference organiser:
Kia ora Ash,
I would like to thank you so much for hosting the inaugural Imagine It! Conference at Western Heights School. There was an amazing amount of feedback about your school from participants who came from all over NZ. They were really impressed with the classrooms and learning environments. They were also very envious of your playgrounds, especially the new one outside the hall.
Your two presenter teachers received extremely positive feedback about their learning environments and the workshops they ran. Your junior teachers stepped up to help by arranging traffic control in the morning. Your staff are fabulous ambassadors for your school.
I also wanted to let you know how highly all of them spoke of you as their leader. I work with a large number of principals and leadership teams across the Motu and have been a principal myself for many years, so I do not make these comments lightly. The conversations we had, the feedback from participants and the comments from your staff all show you to be an innovative and creative leader who is focused on making a difference for all. Congratulations!
Once again, thank you so much for all the support to make this conference such a success.
Me te mihi me te whakaute
Ande Ford
(I apologise for leaving the comments about me in there. It is a way of showing our parent community an outside assessment of all aspects of our school.)
ULearn is huge - one of the premiere Learning Conferences held in NZ each year. Presenting at Ulearn to educators and leaders from all over New Zealand is huge. Western Heights was represented with Mana, Passion, Innovation and Wisdom by Teresa Hannard and Lauren Nummy.
Their workshop was on our Western Heights staff appraisal and growth model - which grew out of Teresa's Masters of Contemporary Education degree focus.
The pride I felt last week is hard to put into words - it really felt like my heart was bursting. Sitting in the front row of Teresa's and Lauren's WHY presentation was the principal of Kelston Boys - and she was totally engaged. Teresa and Lauren were seamless in their delivery - to see them presenting with such poise, professionalism, and confidence was just awesome.
