Hero photograph
 

Glenn Newman: Working at the Top of the Cliff

Mike Fowler —

Retiring Head of Guidance Glenn Newman’s desire to change careers and become a teacher after working for the Probation Service was simple: in his words, “I wanted to work more at the top of the cliff, rather than at the bottom.”

Glenn began his education career first as an English teacher in 1990 at Hagley. In 1998, he moved to work for two years at the Salisbury Foundation, a residential facility for prison parolees transitioning into the community. He then returned to Hagley to some part-time teaching. After criticising the lack of a male counsellor and what he saw as a focus on counselling girls at the expense of boys at Hagley, the retiring counsellor “called his bluff”, as Glenn puts it, and challenged him to apply for her position in the counselling team.

The rest is history: Glenn’s been Head of Guidance since the early 2000s. He introduced a team approach to counselling, going beyond the one-on-one interviews with students and involving teachers and family. Glenn feels that teachers are undervalued. He sees school and the relationships students have with their teachers as critical to their wellbeing. He says that for some of our students with chaotic lives, their teacher can be the one reliable adult in their lives. At Hagley, he’s also been widely involved in outdoor education with a lifelong love of the outdoors starting as a caver at high school. He’s been an instructor for Canterbury Mountaineering as well as being involved in search and rescue in a stint in Antarctica.

After 27 years at Hagley, Glenn feels that now is the right time for him and for his family to move on to new things. “You can be around too long,” Glenn says in his self-deprecating way. While he says he will miss Hagley, Glenn’s not planning to put his feet up in retirement. First, there’s overseas travel visiting family in the Czech Republic then in England. By the time he and his wife Hana return from their travels, the number of their grandchildren will have increased to three and his grandparenting duties will have expanded. Glenn’s also looking forward to working as a volunteer for the Department of Conservation as a hut warden on Stewart Island over part of the summer. There’s the holiday home too in Waiau in North Canterbury, 90 minutes' drive from Christchurch – so the full life at Hagley will be traded for a full life beyond it.