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Welcome to our first Deaf Education Centres Whanau newsletter

Bernadette Mulcahy Bouwman & Louise Roe —

Kia ora koutou katoa

To Parents. Whanau, Caregivers and all those who support our learners.

Welcome to our first Deaf Education Centres Whanau newsletter
This is an important step in improving our communication with you and we look forward to having more regular contact with you

It is now a well established truth of modern education that student achievement and progress are best fostered when school and home are working together to support the learning needs of our young people. Therefore we want to enter into relationships with you that are productive, solution oriented and future focused. We want to communicate effectively with you in order to know your children well, as well as your expectations and aspirations for them. It is our privilege and our pleasure to be part of your childs’ educational journey.

Later this term and in each quarter, we will issue a newsletter to:-

  • Showcase success and developments
  • Encourage strategies for further learning
  • Support more connectedness within our community
  • Advertise relevant material

We would also love to hear any ideas you have regarding content of this publication. Please be in touch with our Community Engagement Officer, Roisin Connolly with any ideas you wish to share in this regard.

As you will all be aware, Deaf Education in New Zealand is undergoing some significant change. We are excited about the potential these changes offer our staff to better serve the needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students. Being well connected to you also offers us some important opportunities too: we value this and look forward to working with you further.

In this newsletter we have included a brief bio of the Principals of each DEC and description of their roles:

Louise Roe has been the acting Principal of Kelston Deaf Education Centre since June 2018. She comes to this role from a mainstream career that incorporates both pastoral and curriculum leadership, and from a senior leadership position that saw her leading initiatives focused on school connectedness, professional learning, pedagogy and leadership.

Bernie Mulcahy-Bouwman is the Principal of van Asch Deaf Education Centre. Bernie has worked extensively in deaf education as a classroom teacher, early childhood teacher, speech language therapist, lecturer and senior administrator.

Bernie and Louise work closely together to ensure the two DECs are being led in a coherent manner to meet the Board’s vision and Strategic Goals.

Shared planning is the first step for 2019. The Senior Leaders of the two Deaf Education Centres will meet together shortly to plan shared leadership activities to lift student achievement during 2019. A big focus for this year is for the Principals to work with the Board and Ministry of Education on Service Delivery. You will receive further information on this work and will have opportunity to contribute to the consultation during this year. We are very excited by this opportunity to be able to consider how to best set up DEC programmes and services for current and future Deaf and Hard of Hearing learners, their schools, family and whanau. We are always striving for ongoing improvement but a redesign of service delivery concepts offers a rare opportunity to strengthen Deaf Educational support from a national perspective.

Bernadette Mulcahy Bouwman & Louise Roe