Principal's Page

Kia Ora Friends 

It's great to be back at school in term two - and it's great to be back in New Zealand too.

My wife, Jacqualene, is the principal of Mangere Central School. She has a large cohort of Samoan students and some Samoan staff members, too. One of her team leaders, Navena, is from the island of Savai'i. Having supported primary schools in Aitutaki for the last four years, we thought it would be good to support some schools in Savai'i this year.

A group of six teachers joined Jacqualene and me on this trip. We self-fund everything, including the resources, equipment, books and supplies we donate.

We stayed with Navena for a week, then spent a few days at Savai'i Lagoon Resort.

First, the weather. It was hot! 32 to 36 degrees each day. There was one day when we had a heavy downpour for an hour, but otherwise it was beautifully fine.

We worked with teachers from years one to eight, supporting them with everything from lesson planning and resources to classroom management and the use of AI. They were full of questions and deeply engaged with all we offered. It was a very humbling experience to see how hard they had to work to prepare lessons and resources, how little they had, and how grateful they were for everything we provided.

We are determined to find resources and get these over there over the course of this year. A good example was when we took a PR1ME maths textbook over to demonstrate some maths teaching approaches. They were in awe of the book and are hugely hopeful we can access some copies at different levels to send to them. We are working on it...

The resort we stayed at is quite simple in terms of accommodation, but it has the best beach and location in Savai'i. I am a softie about seawater temperatures, but I swam all day, every day at the resort. Most of that was actually snorkelling, and the coral and the fish were just stunning - I saw several new, never-seen-by-me-before fish each day.

Our first Whānau Time for term two is on Friday 1 May. The theme is "Our School" and we will start proceedings at around 9:40 am in our hall. Everyone welcome. You can also follow along with our Live Stream on our Facebook page if you are unable to be here at that time. https://www.facebook.com/westheights.school

 If you want to catch up on previous Live Streams and other school event videos, you can visit our Western Heights YouTube channel here: Western Heights YouTube Channel.

There are 550 videos available to view, with more to come soon. It's a cool way to take a trip back through time, too.

Heads Up Reminder:

Teacher Only Day for Western Heights (and many Henderson schools) on Friday 29 May. NO school for us that day.

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.