Farewell to Mrs Stewart
Mrs Stacey Stewart joined the School as a third-year teacher of English, in January 2017, while known as Miss Stacey King.
She heard good things about St Paul’s Collegiate School from two of her friends from university – Mr Keegan Stewart (her now husband) and Miss Jane Spenceley. In Ms Stewart's final year of secondary school (2007), Stacey was Head Girl and Dux of Tuakau College. The next year she began her tertiary education at the University of Waikato and in 2010 she gained her Bachelor of Arts with a Double Major in English and History. At this point, Stacey decided to take the opportunity to travel and work in Australia and visited India. Once she got the travel bug out of her system, she returned to the University of Waikato (2014) and completed a Diploma in Secondary Teaching.
For the first half of 2015, Stacey taught junior English and senior History at Onewhero Area School, before moving to Trident High School in Whakatane, until she was lured back to the Waikato.
Stacey has always had a passion for, "Working with, supporting, mentoring, and developing young women". She developed strong connections with large numbers of our female students over the past seven plus years through her classroom teaching, the choir, and netball.
In 2019, Stacey joined with Mrs Elizabeth Pitu (Assistant Housemaster of Harington Day), and the newly appointed Housemaster of Harington Day, Mrs Heidi Lewis, to provide pastoral care for the 96 day girls we had at the start of that year. Her role was that of Assistant Housemaster, which morphed into the role of Deputy Housemaster. It is a very important thing to note that the girls of Harington House have provided a platform for Stacey to learn what it is to mother girls, given that she is currently raising her two daughters Delilah and Clementine. They won’t be able to get anything past her once they become teenagers.
In 2020, she took a year out to enjoy becoming a first-time mum before returning in 2021 to her English teaching and Deputy Housemaster positions.
In late September 2022, Stacey became one of two Assistant LOCs of English – a position she held until her departure for the HOD English position at Waikato Diocesan School for Girls, which she takes up next week.
Some of the many highlights of Stacey’s working career to date have been her involvement with Ugly Shakespeare, Debating, Choir, and accompanying St Paul’s Collegiate School students to Cambodia on the service trip in December 2019.
Stacey is a dedicated, determined, committed, and passionate practitioner. She is always looking to improve the learning experience of the young people within her classroom, whether teaching all levels of high school English or helping teenagers get a better handle on History.
Her pastoral care skills are such that there would be few young women who have passed through St Paul’s during Stacey’s tenure with Harington Day House that have not been blessed by her wisdom, her kindness, her desire to see all the girls come to school every day bringing the best version of themselves so that they can make the most of every opportunity placed before them.
She is firm but fair. She is innovative and creative in the way she teaches so that whether a learner is in the advanced class or has a barrier to learning, she will still find a way to engender their full engagement in the lessons she takes such joy in preparing. We wish Stacey well for the next exciting chapter of her teaching career and have no doubts she will remain a familiar face on campus when she attends functions alongside Mr Stewart.