Dear parents/caregivers

Hot off the press! Congratulations to our senior girls’ volleyball team who have finished seventh in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Volleyball Championships. To finish in the top 8 in such a competitive event is a wonderful achievement and congratulations must go out to all team members, coach Brendan Crichton and Manager Moira Raumati. Our senior boys’ volleyball team have also performed well at the tournament, our Senior B Girls' Volleyball team have moved up a division and our 3x3 basketball teams have all finished in the top 13 for their divisions in Tauranga.

Tomorrow’s Schools Review

As many of you will be aware the Tomorrows Schools report was released at the end of 2018. You can read the review online here: https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/tomorrows-schools-review/

I have spent some considerable time reading the report, which if implemented, would see the biggest shake up in New Zealand state education since 1989.

The primary purpose of the Review was to consider the ability of the current governance, management and administration of the compulsory schooling system to respond to education needs in the future, and to achieve equity and excellence for all children and young people.

I believe some of the changes recommended could go some way towards addressing equity concerns. However, although I do not buy into the scaremongering by some principals over the proposed changes, there are some parts of the review that I have deep concerns about. In particular:

• The introduction of education ‘hubs’ threaten the independent integrity of the system and risk schools losing their localised ‘flavour’, although there may well be benefits for smaller rural schools.
• Education hubs will introduce more bureaucracy into an already bloated system and take away the ability of schools to control their own high-level discipline procedures (suspensions and exclusions).
• The education system as a whole is working incredibly well.  Why not focus extra energy and resources on assisting schools and principals that require extra support, rather than restructuring an entire system?
• The recommendation in the report is that principals will be employed on 5-year contracts to a school through the hub. For obvious reasons I strongly oppose this suggestion.
• The school board would lose all governance responsibilities and look much more like the ‘school committees’ that were in existence pre-1989.  I have concerns that many parents will not consider this as an integral function to the running of the school.

Please note that this review has not been analysed at a high level yet by the Board of Trustees. The views above are my own personal views, although the initial feedback across the country is that they are shared by many educators. I encourage you to have a say through taking this short survey: https://consultation.education.govt.nz/tsr/survey2019/

Nga mihi

Daniel Wilson
Principal