We wish you all the very best for the holiday season.

Kia ora koutou

What a wonderful way to finish the school year with our junior prizegiving this afternoon.  Congratulations to all our prizewinners.  A full list of award winners can be found here.

As another year draws to a close, we can reflect once again on what has been a very challenging, but in many ways, a truly outstanding year at Nayland College. I simply cannot remember a year in which our students have achieved so many accolades on a regional, national and international scale. Of course, this does not happen by accident, with our world class teachers and staff members leading the way in terms of supporting our young people to be successful in anything they choose to do.

All this has taken place in the context of another extremely challenging and disruptive year. Relationships were strained as we attempted to learn whilst using masks, year levels were rostered home, and both staff and student absences meant continuity of learning has been incredibly difficult. Alongside external factors such as school construction work, local flooding, the war in Europe and high inflation, it all has put a huge strain on students, staff and whānau.

As a school we are now grappling with the best way to support our learners as we navigate our way out of crisis mode. Like all schools, in many ways, we find ourselves going back to basics to teach and reinforce school values and expectations to groups of students that have now not experienced 'normal school' for three years. Year 13s have never had a normal NCEA cycle and many of our junior students missed out on some fundamentals of learning how to ‘grow up’ through very disrupted intermediate and junior secondary schooling years.

Alongside these challenges, we need to urgently address the strain on the teaching profession. The teachers at Nayland College are exceptional. But they are also drained at the end of three long years. They have been operating in crisis mode and using every skill in their toolkit to ensure our students still gain the qualifications they need, in the midst of enforced absences and inequitable access to home learning solutions. Sometimes, it can be disheartening. I know that the PPTA are working hard in the background to ensure some of the issues facing the teaching profession are addressed in the next contract.  

It is always sad to say goodbye to staff who are off on new adventures.  I would like to acknowledge,  thank and farewell those staff who are leaving us at the end of 2022 (years of service in brackets):

• Kerri Haggart (2 terms)
• Vanessa O’Brien (2 terms) 
• Andrew Nyhoff (1 year)
• Tara Clement (1year)
• Kevin Roughton (1year) 
• Eloise Van Velthooven (2 years)
• Zoe Walker (3 years) 
• Amanda Wharton (3 years) 
  
• Tristan Wharton (3 years) 
• Verity Davidson (4.5 years) ·
• Mark Lewers (6 years)
• John Valentine (7 years) Returning in a relief capacity
• Ashley Whitehead (12 years)
• Ali Westerby (14.5 years)
• Damian Roughan (26 years)
• Ruth Dixon (25 years) 
• Dixie McDonald (33 years) 

I wish you all the very best for the holidays ahead. And, to all our students that will not be returning to Nayland College next year, we wish you the very best for the future.

Ngā mihi nui

Daniel Wilson

Principal