Isaac Thorpe, Year 13
This week’s WISE of the Week, awarded by the Mathematics faculty, is awarded to Isaac Thorpe in Year 13. In the classroom, Isaac’s engagement is second to none. When we tackle complex concepts in Level 3 Calculus, he doesn’t just look for the quickest path to the right answer, he shows a genuine, laser-focused interest to understand the ‘why’ behind the mathematics.

What truly sets Isaac at a high level is his work ethic outside of school hours. We all know that true mathematical fluency is built on practice, and Isaac consistently goes above and beyond with his independent study and homework.

Isaac, your hard work has not gone unnoticed, and we are all incredibly proud of the mathematician you have become this year.

The post WISE of the Week: Isaac Thorpe appeared first on Waiheke High School.

It is easy to focus on the large, flashier projects that often dominate school wish lists, but true success in education is built on the foundations we don’t always notice. Over the term break, we reached several milestones in our ongoing infrastructure upgrades – projects that might not be glamorous, but are vital for creating the comfortable, safe, and effective learning environment our students deserve.

A decade ago, when the Ministry redirected us away from the prospect of a completely new school, we were faced with a daunting goal: we needed to turn our aging facilities into high-performing buildings on a shoestring budget. This has been a steady process, often punctuated by ‘function over form’ solutions, but I am proud of our recent progress and incredibly excited about the further upgrades in the pipeline.

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of one of the recent upgrades is that it has been a direct result of student voice. Since my first term here, students have consistently raised the issue of comfort in our A-Block classrooms – especially during the hot summer months.

 

I am pleased to report that we have completed the installation of new heating and cooling systems across all nine classrooms in our main A-Block. These promise to be a total game-changer for focus and engagement, and initial feedback shows that even the heating is a major upgrade from our old gas boiler.

Coupled with our existing solar units, these heat pumps provide a cleaner, more efficient climate control system than we have ever had. This is a fantastic example of a successful outcome built by prioritising student feedback in our strategic planning.

Progress is also moving steadily in our older buildings. We are currently midway through our phased replacement of the windows and joinery in B-Block. By moving from the original drafty wooden frames and thin glass to modern, high-performance glazing and joinery, we are creating the comfortable, consistent climate that these classrooms have lacked for years. Alongside this, we have completed the internal access renovations connecting our Art and Technology classrooms. It is exciting to see the vision for our Creative Industries hub beginning to take shape with colour, texture and design elements stitching together the different areas of the block. While there is still work to be done, the improved flow between these spaces allows for a much more integrated and collaborative approach to learning.

While it would be ideal to have the resources to keep everything perfect all at once, there is great satisfaction in looking back at these tangible improvements. Looking forward, our main focus points on the horizon for the next 12 months include:

• Continuing the replacement of the remaining windows and joinery in B-block.
• Replacing the aging extraction unit in our technology block. This is a critical prerequisite for our next exciting addition: a new laser cutter to supplement our existing workshop.
• The replacement of the aging A-Block deck.

In 2026, we commissioned a property masterplan detailing the development of our outdoor spaces for the next two decades. Our first step in enacting these developments is to address student seating and shade.

 

In keeping with our commitment to student-led decision-making, I am working closely with our Student Board Representative, Isaac Thorpe, who is coordinating the canvassing of student opinions on how to best approach this. Isaac has already done an outstanding job capturing student feedback on key issues, ensuring our next steps reflect the style and utility that matter most to our learners.

While the dream of a new school feels like a long time ago now, the reality of a fully revitalized campus feels closer with each step. Every new window and every new heat pump brings us closer to providing the best learning environment for our students.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

The post Principal’s Pānui: Reaching milestones in our ongoing infrastructure upgrades appeared first on Waiheke High School.

The post Lunches are available via Ezlunch – 5 Days a Week! appeared first on Waiheke High School.

The post Creative Industries Mid Year Show, 24th July appeared first on Waiheke High School.

The post Our own WHS Tiny Desk Concert with our music students in the library appeared first on Waiheke High School.

The Budget has recently been announced for the next several years by our current government. The Budget overall holds a monstrous amount of information and yet there is one particular detail that has stuck with me in the weeks following the announcement. In what has been presented alongside a suite of “education investments” is a 2% increase to school operating budgets. The language surrounding this is varied but includes “to meet rising costs”, “help manage costs and maintain provisions” and “continue to provide services to meet the needs of students nationwide and raise achievement”.

This stands in stark contrast to the reality faced by New Zealand schools.

Like everyday Kiwis, schools have been facing the same price surges that homes have been facing over the past 5 years. While prices have surged for just about everything, our operating budgets have not. In a recent publication from the Post Primary Teachers Association, this lag has been calculated to show a reduction in real funding of 12% over 5 years – a reduction in purchasing power of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The call from the PPTA was made that anything less than a 5% increase in operational funding would fail to support our schools.

Unfortunately, the “education investment” designed to “provide services to meet the needs of students” is not real – we are projected to have inflation exceed our budget increases yet again in 2026; further reducing our funding in real terms. Simply put: funding for New Zealand schools is going backwards.

The reality is that schools have already cut any fat in the system and are reaching the point where now they must consider which essential services need to be cut. I have spoken to one principal who had to make a teacher aide/learning assistant redundant just to break even, and another who has cut their curriculum budgets by 20% for all faculties; in both cases taking precious learning resources out of their classrooms. Thankfully, Waiheke High School has sufficient reserves to protect these vital resources for now but we have been using our rainy day fund in recent years – a challenge that all schools are facing.

Currently, no political party has clearly stated that they will improve the funding of schools above the 5% space where it will begin to remedy this systemic shortfall. While politicians argue over which education policy they support, it seems there isn’t enough attention paid to whether or not schools can keep the lights on. As schools cannot improve their revenue streams through production like a typical business, we are at the whim of such policy decisions and can only remedy such shortfalls with fundraisers and donations – an increasingly common practice among all schools with the current fiscal pinch hurting everyone.

If you are interested in helping out with this ongoing challenge, I would encourage you to contact those across the political spectrum as we head into the election cycle to make as much noise around this as possible. This is an issue facing every primary, area and high school in New Zealand so the more voices raising concern around this shortfall the better. Alternatively, when you see fundraisers out and about in our local community, please support if you are able.

Having spoken at length about these issues with my fellow principals on Waiheke, our local schools are conscious that everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment so we don’t ask for help lightly. We do this because we want to protect our kids from bearing the brunt of this and because of the simple economic fact that the system is currently letting us down.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

The post Principal’s Pānui: Budgeting for our future appeared first on Waiheke High School.

The post WHS music students at the Auckland SmokeFreeRockQuest appeared first on Waiheke High School.

Our very first WISE of the Week recipients, for the next two weeks, are awarded by Creative Industries; goes to:

Maisie Rainer Year 8
Maisie demonstrates Excellence through her commitment to producing work of a high standard and her thoughtful, creative approach to design. Reflecting Creativity (Ahuatanga), she consistently thinks outside the box, exploring imaginative ideas and applying critical thinking to bring originality to her projects.

The post Launching WISE of the Week appeared first on Waiheke High School.

At a principals meeting I attended this week, there was a robust discussion about the ongoing barrage of media surrounding teachers and education more generally. Lately it has felt like there has been a concerted effort from the media to blow up any story of a teacher doing something wrong or for politicians to take any opportunity to suggest that teachers are collectively either complacent or failing our learners.

Conversely, among the principals in the room, the collective feeling was that, day in and day out, we see teachers working incredibly hard and with a great amount of care and passion about the success of their students. Naturally, teachers don’t always get it right – we are humans working under pressure and things won’t always go as planned – but it seems farfetched to so regularly see headlines about teacher misconduct in the news.

I decided to investigate this a bit more to try to figure out how these two things might exist together at the same time. The estimated number of primary and secondary teachers in New Zealand is just under 70,000. Based on that number, if we had a headline grabbing story once a week in the media where a teacher has been reprimanded by the teaching council, that would amount to 0.07% of the teaching workforce. Another way of looking at that is that 99.93% of the teaching workforce is out there doing great things with the youth of Aotearoa. Even if we increase the frequency of these stories to a daily occurrence, which I’m confident is not the case, this would represent 0.5% of the workforce or 99.5% of the teachers of Aotearoa working effectively with our young people.

I’d say the true number is likely somewhere in the middle of those figures, but this is lost in something of a barrage that is designed to remind us regularly that teachers are failing our students. It seems to me that the collective lived experience of principals can be true, and so can the current situation with the media consistently reporting the biggest mistakes of our profession in large print. Sadly, the bias toward the negative stories loses most of what is important to celebrate and can contribute to whānau feeling less confident in our education system and, in particular, our educators. What I feel is getting lost is the missing statistic where 99.8% of the time, parents should be confident that teachers in New Zealand are working very hard and generally achieving great results with their students.

The paradigm in the media seems to trend heavily toward the negative – which is a shame, because there is so much to celebrate, but perhaps it doesn’t generate the revenue when compared to that which shocks and causes consternation.

As for myself, I wanted to take the opportunity to use my small media reach to provide a counter to the narrative and show that, overwhelmingly, teachers in New Zealand are hard working, professional and highly skilled, and that parents should be confident that all across New Zealand – Waiheke included – our teachers are overwhelmingly doing great work, and our students are overwhelmingly achieving great things.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

The post Principal’s Pānui: Celebrating teachers doing great work appeared first on Waiheke High School.

She’s also been nominated for the AMA’s People’s Choice Awards. You can vote for her or any of the talented artists here: peopleschoice.aotearoamusicawards.co.nz >>

The post Our Waiata kaiako, Geneva AM wins the Taite Music Prize appeared first on Waiheke High School.