Nau mai haere mai ki te tino whakahirahira nei

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa

Talofa lava, i matua, malo le soifua. Afio mai.

Warm greetings tonight to this very special occasion, our 142nd prizegiving,

I extend a very warm welcome to Board trustees, distinguished guests, staff, students, parents and caregivers and extended whanau.

I feel privileged to take up the journey as Principal of Christchurch Girls' High School /Te Kura o Hine Waiora and I am very much enjoying working with the staff, students, parents and community of the school.

We are fortunate to inherit the legacy of the strong and visionary women who founded and have led the school through its history. Inherent in treasuring that tradition is the challenge to be progressive, to look to the future and to move ahead of the times while reinterpreting the meaning of excellence in education in new contexts.

As one of four sisters, a mother of three daughters and grandmother to three granddaughters, it is important to me that our girls are wahine toa – strong women, ready for their futures, having agency over their lives and choices, and young women who are loving, courageous, authentic and grateful for life and all it offers.

Education is a powerful agent for social transformation and offers us the opportunity to leave our young people a planet to inherit which values equity, diversity and justice. We have an obligation to inspire in them a sense of their own creativity and a commitment to develop a better world for all, in particular for those left at the margins of society. While women in New Zealand and the Western world enjoy many privileges and freedoms, there are still barriers to success and appalling statistics for women in the most vulnerable positions both locally and globally.

It is Important that our young women have the confidence and wellbeing to navigate their lives successfully in the future and also the conscience and courage to make a difference in the world for women and girls who lives are abused, enslaved and dehumanized.

In this way we continue the vision which first made history in establishing this school for girls in 1877 against the prevailing norms of the time.

As we enter 2020 we are in a new and exciting phase of renewal of vision and strategic direction for the school. We have traditionally enjoyed very high achievement results and we are reinterpreting what excellence means in a progressive and relational culture which will prepare our students for the future and ensure they flourish. Tradition is problematic when used as a handbrake to change, powerful when it is an anchor and touchstone which challenges us into the future.

At its heart a school is a collection of human beings invested in the future of the young people we love and raise. Like any organisation, it does not rise and fall at the end of the day on the back of technology, or money, or plant or property, or the prevailing political or educational philosophy. These are tools at our service and resources we need, but they do not make us who we are.

A school thrives and lives and grows based on the passions and relationships of the people connected to it and connected to the futures of the young people within.

We are fortunate with our young women who daily bring their energy, enthusiasm, curiosity and humour to our lives. Working with young people has the duality of being both exhausting and exhilarating. Our students are good human beings, creative, caring, talented and resourceful. They are growing into fine adults. Look at our graduates here tonight. How proud we can be of them, another year group, off into life.

And what a complex life it is for a young person to define their humanity in a rapidly changing and demanding world. What does it mean to be a partner, parent, colleague, employer, employee, provider, homemaker in this diverse world. How does our young person define him or herself in relation to the politics of gender, globalisation, inequality, religion and justice? Huge questions for a young person to explore.

We are fortunate to have a great staff, caring, good people who enjoy your daughters, who are dedicated to their development and who are fantastic adult role models for our students about what it means to be human.

Strong cultures can be built around the notion of legacy, developing deep capability, courage to innovate, and team culture built around relationship.

The desire to innovate takes both a belief in the legacy and the capability to do so. We touched on the legacy with which our founders have challenged us at the beginning of this speech, The easy thing to do is to rest on one’s laurels and deliver the tried and true, the problem being that the tried and true is often effective for a different time, not for this time or a future time.

Our context for education now requires a different approach, keeping the best of the past but having the courage to look to the future. The challenge for all of us is that we are in the era of complex change where we need to develop new solutions and we do not enter the change process knowing Exactly what the answers in advance. So when we ask you to have confidence as parents in new learning environments, new ways of learning and new technology systems, we are asking you to be part of this change process with us.

Joan Chichester, a feminist theologian, reminds us “It is not the answers we teach them to give, but rather it is the questions we teach them to ask, that are the measure of the leadership we give to the emerging generation”.

And the questions need to be about life as we know it and life in the future, about the planet on which we live and the great global issues, about sustainability and connectedness of the universe, about our response and solutions to diversity, injustice, poverty, violence and intolerance, loss of liberty, creation of freedom. We only need to reflect on the tragedy of March 15 to understand this.

The solutions and innovations require a new curriculum which focuses on core content knowledge, cross disciplinary knowledge, digital literacy, life and job skills, ethical and emotional awareness, cultural competence, creativity, innovation, problem solving, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

Forest E Witcraft said “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child”. The potential to change the world through the teaching of the child is an exceptional legacy; one ultimately becomes a vessel through which the evolution of humanity flows.

I want to congratulate our staff on beginning to lead this change and being prepared to begin this transformative journey as we build our reputation as both a high achieving and a progressive school. We do it only with your support, your knowledge of your daughters and your shared dream of the sort of humans you want your young people to be. As Albert Einstein said, “Try not to become a person of success, become a person of value”.

To our Year 13 leavers on behalf of the staff I thank each and every one of you for the wonderful and individual gifts you have brought to this school and to us – the measure of a successful education is so much more than academic results or sporting or cultural triumphs, important as these are. As teachers, along with your parents, we have the role of educating you to be human – to have capacity to care, empathise and connect, to have passion and follow it, to be able to dream and strive for the dream, to value what it is to be human and to act only in ways which enhance your humanity and the humanity of others, to treat the hearts of others as a treasure not to be trampled on, to nurture your own creativity as you weave your thread in this amazing universe in which we find ourselves.

Live with passion, energy, purpose and commitment and give generously of yourself to life. Live with an openness to life. As an old Chinese proverb expresses it perfectly

Keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come

Keep that tree well watered through your life.

Finally thank you to the Board of Trustees and Julian Bowden the Chair for giving me the opportunity to lead this school and for your support, professionalism and commitment to the school. To the PTA thank you for your tireless work behind the scenes. To parents thank you for entrusting your young people into our hands. To the staff, thank you for the openness, trust and friendship you have extended to me. I am looking forward to the future with you and what we do! To my Senior Leadership Team thank you for your hard work, late hours, humour, loyalty and for making me so welcome. A very special thanks to my PA Leah McHaffie who makes my life as Principal so much easier, for her massive work ethic and gentle calmness.

I wish you all peaceful and relaxing holidays and a very happy Christmas.

Fa’afetai lava. ‘ia manuia le afiafi. Soifua.

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui

No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa