Julia Owen, Year 11
Chosen by the Trade Academies, our WISE of the Week recipient for this week is Julia Owen, Year 11.

Julia demonstrates Independence and School Culture as a member of the Hospitality, Event Management, Travel and Adventure Tourism Academy. She demonstrates this through her attendance, punctuality, attention to detail, and high-quality work. Julia also demonstrates Whanaungatanga with her positive attitude, willingness to participate, and commitment to learning opportunities.

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I am delighted to begin this pānui by celebrating the incredible progress we are making together at Waiheke High School. Our recent data reveals that our collective efforts to prioritize learning and excellence are yielding real results for our students. Most notably, during term 2 we have seen a significant 9% jump in regular attendance (90%+) compared to term 2 last year – consolidating the major improvements across term 1. We are also seeing a much higher rate of Merit and Excellence grades in NCEA, which we directly associate with this improvement in attendance along with strong messaging from staff around their high expectations for our very capable students. These positive gains are evidence that our school is moving in the right direction and that we are achieving our vision of being the best we can be for our community.

To sustain this momentum and ensure every student continues to thrive, we need your ongoing help and support. While we celebrate these successes, we must also acknowledge that the landscape of education funding in New Zealand currently faces significant systemic shortfalls as I’ve touched on in some recent newsletters. Our core purpose remains a commitment to outstanding learning and the belief that every student has the potential for individual excellence, yet the cost of providing this high-quality, holistic education continues to rise beyond the increases provided in recent government budgets. We have been careful to reduce expenditure while protecting vital resources like teacher aides, but further support is essential to maintain and build upon the gains that we have made over the past few years.

In order to maintain the high standards we hold for our students and ensure our teaching staff have the resources they need to help every learner excel, the Board of Trustees has conducted a thorough review of our school donation, which currently sits at $175 per student or $250 per family.

This school donation has remained unchanged for a decade and its purchasing power has been eroded by significant inflation. To address this and align our school with comparable secondary schools across Auckland, the Board approved an adjustment to our donation rates starting in 2027.

We do not make this decision lightly – we do so to protect the learning journey of our children and ensure they are not bearing the brunt of the current economic climate. To provide context, our current research into the annual donations requested by our closest neighbouring Auckland public secondary schools produced an average donation request of over $500 per student for the year and in some cases the request was over $1000. However, we acknowledge that this comes at a time when many families are feeling a fiscal pinch. As a result, we are increasing the requested donation for the 2027 academic year to $300 for a single student and $400 for a family.

These contributions remain voluntary, yet they are vital. Where subject fees are directly related to consumables for a given subject, the school donation provides discretionary funding for generic classroom resources, technology upgrades, and co-curricular opportunities that allow our students to live out our Waiheke WISE values—Whanaungatanga, Independence, School Culture, and Excellence. This investment ensures we can continue to provide the learning environments and wider school initiatives that are helping us to raise the standard of education on Waiheke.

For whānau and community members who are in a position to provide additional support beyond these rates, I am pleased to update that the Waiheke High School Foundation, first announced at our 40th anniversary celebrations, is currently in its final stages of establishment. This foundation will serve as a long-term vehicle for community-led investment into the future of our kura. We will share more details on how you can contribute to the Foundation in the coming months.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership and for the support you show our staff and students. By working together, we ensure that every student at Waiheke High School can embody our school whakataukī in pursuit of their farthest horizon.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

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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

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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

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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.

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