During the last week of Term 1, the School Board flew up to Rotorua to attend the NZSTA Conference. The Conference is for school board members all over New Zealand to get together and attend workshops on how we can improve our governance in our school.

This conference had around about a thousand people attending, as well as keynote speakers that gave inspirational speeches about education. We had Meng Foon, (New Zealand Race Relations Commissioner), Chris Hipkins (Education Minister), Katheryn Berkett (Educational Psychologist), Karl Vasau
(Principal of Rowandale Primary School).
They all talked about how important boards play a major role into shaping the way and the culture of the school.

This year the theme of the conference was Leading Change. It’s important for boards all over the country to understand what change is, how to lead it and how to make it work. As the Board is the governing body of our school it is our role to identify the changes we want to make in our student lives and overseeing the processes to make sure that we are achieving the changes we’ve identified.

There were many workshops that I attended that I took so much away from.
One workshop in particular that really stood out for me which I took alot of information from was a workshop called On-Board Pasifika. It was about what we are doing in our schools and communities for students that are Pasifika. There are 18 nations that are classified as Pasifika, This workshop wasn’t just about Pasifika students it was also about what we can do to ensure that other students that come from other ethnic groups feel like they are at home at school.

There were other workshops that focused on ERO, School Finances, Policies, Strategic Planning, Managing Employment Breakdowns, Student Behaviour Management, and much more. All of these workshops gave us all a deeper understanding of how we can better govern our school and create effective change.

As a student on the board, there was so much information that took away and learnt. I would personally like to delve deeper into certain areas and do some research. It was so good spending time away with the board we all had such a fun time attending this event with so many laughs. We also meet other board members from different schools across the country.

Kaia Beal

Board of Greymouth High School