Principal's Speech & Presentation

Senior Prize Giving Speech 2024

Tēnā koutou katoa 

Ngā mihi nui

Kia koutou

2024 has been, in theory at least, the most “normal” year since I've been principal at Greymouth High School - Te kura tuarua o Māwhera. My goal every year has been to keep our school open for everyone every day and this year we only rostered home for three days one year group at a time. So that was a massive improvement on previous years!

We did this even though we were at times two teachers down, with very few or no relievers. But one thing I have learnt about our staff here at Grey High is that we really have the best interests of our rangatahi, our students, at the heart of what we do. They have gone above and beyond as they do every year and I really have to thank them from the bottom of my heart for being so flexible,  helpful and understanding. 

I also want to thank all of our students who have also been flexible, helpful and understanding.  Honestly, our kids are so great! 

And today was no exception.  During period 2 we moved all of our students out of the maths block as there was a very strong smell of adhesives - I’ve only just got rid of my headache - from the builders.  Then our electricity in the hall went crazy, more info to come, and instead of our practice being in here it was in the gym and our leavers assembly had to move to the library.  It was a fantastic example of how everyone just got on with everything - the resilience was high.  

Anyway, prizegiving is in here as planned - hopefully for the whole thing and it is always a fantastic time for me to reflect on the year. I've kept it to three things out of the many

Firstly, we are fortunate to have had so much building work completed this year.  We had classes everywhere including the staffroom. I was especially happy to see the science labs completed - well three out of five so far! But we are nearly there!  It was the first area I focussed on way back in 2021 so 4 years isn’t too bad! There's still some more building works to come so thanks in advance to everyone who has to move rooms again! A special thanks goes to Dr Hunter who has changed the timetable many times! Thank you Michael!

Our building works also demonstrate that we truly follow through on our school vision of being at the heart of the community.  Over the last two years we put over $4 million into our local Greymouth area from our building works alone. Wherever we can we tap into our local businesses and support them as they support us.

Secondly, I am very proud of the pathways we offer at Greymouth High School.  We want to make sure that all of our young people find success whatever that looks like to them and their whānau.  This evening’s prizegiving and the number of scholarships received is testament to the amazing amount of hard work you folks in front of me have done.  I was brimming with pride when I found out that 4 out of the 5 scholarships worth over $30,000 each were given to students from Grey High by Development West Coast.  Thanks Heath and your team!  I was totally blown away.  

However, there are different ways to learn and celebrate success and I am also looking forward to speaking at the Trades Academy prizegiving in a few weeks time. This is always a great evening celebrating learning in different contexts outside of the traditional school curriculum and I am so proud of our Greymouth High School students who I know will be well represented there!  

This year I made a massive effort to try and get to see all of our Trades courses.  Kiri Russell, our Trades Co-ordinator, and I visited Whenua Iti up in the Tasman and our Level 1 and Level 2 Polytechnic classes down at TPP.  Plus, one of my favourite days out this year was the morning I spent with our Supported Learning students up at Lake Brunner.  Everyone deserves access to amazing opportunities and I really thank Tania Jones and her team alongside Whenua Iti for making this happen. 

As well as Trades we celebrate learning in lots of other different ways - Mawhera Services Academy who marched out today, our chess players, our artists, our dramatists and our athletes.  A special mention goes to the Senior boys basketball team who came 5th at nationals for schools under 600.  This was their best result ever and it is very impressive. 

And my final and favourite reflection is on hosting the Te Ahurei kapa haka festival with Ngāti Waewae! For me this was not only my main highlight of 2024 but maybe my entire teaching career.  It was a massive amount of work but also a massive success. My thanks go to our komiti who dedicated many hours behind the scenes and our staff and students who made the day run so smoothly. 

It was fantastic to watch our kapa haka group grow and develop their skills over the year.  They made all of us, including Whaea Kylie who awhied them on from home, incredibly proud. The festival and our rangatahi optimised Greymouth High School ARCH values. 

The learning, our A, akoranga, was authentic and deep. Our rangatahi created their own programme steeped in local pūraku (legends and stories) and celebrating māori culture. 

Our staff learnt our school haka and waiata including actions to tautoko (support) our rangatahi. This made me appreciate, even more, our students’ hard work and reminded us all that learning new things is not only difficult but also takes a lot of practice. I can't express how proud I was of our students and our staff. 

Our students demonstrated our second ARCH value, respectful relationships and even though times were tough, especially without Whaea Kylie’s leadership, they worked through them with support from many of our other staff.  

Our strong connection with Ngāti Waewae also demonstrates respectful relationships with our local community, our C. And I would like to thank matua Joe Mason for his leadership and support at all times. As well as leading us for Te Ahurei Joe has been completing for the last two years the Teach First qualification and I look forward to attending your graduation Joe next year! 

Again, being at the heart of the community is central to our school vision and very important to me personally.  By opening our kura to all of our schools across Te Tai Poutini we were able to demonstrate our manaakitanga, our hospitality.  Everyone had a massive part to play in this but my special thanks go to whaea Erin Connolly and her team of students for feeding everyone! 

In New Zealand hauora which is our fourth ARCH value, encompasses not only our physical, mental and social wellbeing but also our wairua which can loosely be defined as spirituality. The wairua was overflowing on that day and it touched my heart deeply. 

Anyway, after all the tension we finally won.  I was very happy about this as I was presenting the trophies.  I honestly don’t know if I could have handed the winning trophy over to another group. 

So now my thank you's.

Firstly, thank you to all of our staff - I see you every day doing the best for all of our students.  Please know that I am very appreciative and that the amazing work you all do makes my job so much easier and more enjoyable! 

Secondly, thank you to the Board.  As I talk to other principals around the country it makes me appreciate more and more the support we have from our GHS Board.  Thanks especially goes to our board chair Lachlan Bull.  He is a great listener and as someone who can talk a lot I really appreciate that! 

Thank you to all of the whānau who have supported your children by working closely with us so they can find their success.

Finally, thank you to all of our students as you are the reason we are here tonight!  When I have visitors in school they always comment on how our atmosphere is friendly and they like the way that you say hello to me and the other teachers as we walk around school and we like it too.   In week one of this term twice in one day I had compliments about our students from two different people from outside of our school.  One from the Trades lead at TPP polytechnic Moira who I quote said (and I sent myself an email to make sure that I included it in this speech) our students were “lovely, motivated and respectful”.  And, the second person that day was the person who leads our current school lunches programme, (and as an aside they are still happening in some form next year), Marisse.  Marrise said to me, and I wrote it down as well for this speech, “I was really scared about running a lunch programme at a high school but your students are so nice and friendly and respectful that it totally changed my mind”.  As a principal I can’t ask for much more!  So thank you from me, our senior leadership team, our teachers and all of our staff. You make coming to work each day, well 95% of the time, a pleasure! Kia ora! Thank you! space

I’m going to end with a whakatauki from Matua Joe.

Whāia te mātauranga hei oranga mō koutou.

If you follow the path of learning, the world will be your oyster.

Tēnā koutou, Tēnā koutou, Tēnā koutou katoa

Slide show presentation from the eveninghttps://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Hw2THYPjUL2nJCpObXZIIz71qmbyjEXtknrSWzBwspw/edit#slide=id.g30199079551_3_0