Principal's Page

Kia Ora Friends 

It's good to be back at my second home - Western Heights. I managed to avoid catching Covid-19 for four years. Like many New Zealanders, I suspect, I became complacent. A reminder came through to get my next Covid booster. Previously I had been in there getting every booster as soon as it was available to me. But this year, I was busy, I was distracted ... no, I was just complacent. I didn't take it as seriously as I should have and paid the price.

In doing so, I learned what all the "fuss" was about. It was pretty bad to start with, but I guess I had some protection from previous vaccinations, and it could have been worse.

While it was disappointing to miss school for a week - especially greeting our little 'angels' each morning - it was an opportunity to sit down (lie back for a couple of days) and work without any distraction or interruption. I did manage to achieve a great deal during the week - one series of reports, planning and analysis ran to 207 pages, and that was just one of my tasks last week.

Sincere Thanks :

I have said many times that I have the best team I have ever worked with in this Western Heights team. We are a family of 66; we are very different but very special people. Dedicated, caring, creative, effective and efficient, quirky, funny, big-hearted, and always putting our children first. I feel so blessed to have such a team. It also makes it so much less stressful when I do have to be away, as I have complete faith in my team.

Sincere thanks to you all too. You are part of our whānau, our team. Your support for our school and our people makes a massive difference to what we can achieve. When things go wrong, because you trust us, you are willing to listen, to understand and to work with us as we make things right again. When that relational trust is not there it take so much longer to get to the heart of problems and solve them.

Sincere thanks, too, for your attendance at our Learning Conferences last Thursday. It was a fantastic turn-out, and building that deeper knowledge and understanding early in the year makes a big difference to what we can achieve over the course of the year.

Because teachers write up comprehensive notes after Conferences and I read them all, I end up with a good understanding of the quality of the relationships between our teachers and their children, and between our teachers our our parents. It's definitely impressive.

Community Survey:

As you can easily tell, I am immensely proud of our school. We have worked hard to continuously improve our school - and we have come a long way in the last ten years. There is always room for improvement, and we want your help in identifying what will make our school better for our children and you.

So far, we have received 57 responses, and we are grateful for them. Some of the ideas are ones we have looked at in the past. Some, we have strong reasons against. We will share those reasons so you understand why we can't follow through on all the suggestions.

Efeso Collins:

This week at our Monday Morning Staff Meeting I shared this edited down version of Efesso Collins' Maiden Speech to Parliament - recently delivered.

It was a powerful speech and well worth listening to.

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.