It is hard to believe that we are almost a month into school! Our recent year 7 camp to Whakanewha was a standout highlight of the first month with staff and students alike taking this opportunity to build whanaungatanga. A major thank you goes to all of our parent helpers and especially to our prefect team; our student leaders took centre stage in making this camp a real success. Alongside this, today’s athletics day has been a resounding success and it has been great to see everyone in their house colours, competing to their best ability to kick off the yearly house competition with style. Next Friday we follow this up with beach sports at Oneroa Beach and whānau are welcome to pop in throughout the day to say hello.

I want to thank all of our parents and caregivers who attended our “meet the teachers” evening this Tuesday. The event was absolutely bustling and our staff were excited to meet so many new parents and make early learning connections with their new students.

Research shows that engagement from whānau is a key determinant of student success so it was pleasing to see these relationships begin to flourish.

If you were unable to make it this week, we have two further opportunities in the coming weeks with our parent information evening in a fortnight and whānau learning hui the following week. It would be great to see as many of you as possible as we build strong learning focused connections as early as possible.

The parent information evening is a new initiative we are trialling this year designed to create a space for connecting specifically with parents around their tauira’s education journey. While schools do a good job of keeping students up to date with all of the nuts and bolts of education, this is often a grey area for parents and we want to demystify this space.

More information around this event is to follow but key topics for our first iteration will include an overview of our strategic direction, information on CAAs (common assessment activities) for literacy and numeracy, understanding NCEA requirements, Q&A with current students, and space for general questions with members of the senior leadership team. We are aiming to have one of these per term with each built around a different focus on how the school operates with a chance to connect directly with school leadership.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

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Welcome to all of our students and whānau for the start of the new academic year. I hope you had a restful break and that students are returning to kura ready to embark on the year ahead.

At Waiheke High School, our commitment to outstanding learning remains our core purpose, grounded in our belief that every student has the potential for individual excellence.
I am a firm believer in high expectations for all of our ākonga in how they conduct themselves and how they achieve, and we have started the year positively in this regard. The energy across the school has been fantastic through our pōwhiri for new students and orientation days late last week. It has been great to see the diligent and settled approach students have brought for their first day of formal classes.

To start the year, we are consistently messaging our belief in our students and the high expectations we hold for them – and how this shows we care about their future and believe in each of them. When we challenge students to cultivate consistent, productive learning habits, it is to push them to be the best that they can be, and open as many doors as possible for their future – preparing them not just for academic qualifications, but for the world beyond school.

This dedication to academic excellence is bearing fruit. We are proud of our preliminary NCEA results, particularly Level 2 pass rates that are about 5% higher than comparable socio-economic schools and about 10% higher than the national average. Congratulations to our seniors for their commitment and achievement across 2025. Final results will be confirmed soon and should rise even higher as a few more students confirm outstanding grades from last year.

As we move forward, let us remain focused on what drives us. While we offer a wide variety of opportunities at Waiheke High School, our core business will always be educating our next generation. By holding high expectations and working in partnership, we will ensure every student takes full advantage of all that 2026 has to offer.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

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We would like to invite you and your wider whānau to our annual Term 4 Exhibition: Friday 17th October.

This year we will be exhibiting a selection of projects across three venues; the main foyer (reception), Whare Toi and our studio café (B3). The exhibition will open at 3:30, there will be an informal prize giving at 4:00 – 4:30 in the Whare Toi foyer and we will close at 5:30pm.

There will be light refreshments provided by Level 1 Food Design and live music on the grand piano up until the prizegiving.

There are a few projects that we will be working frenetically to get completed by the exhibition so you may hear from teachers about additional workshop times and drop down days as we endeavor to maximise practical time.

Looking forward to seeing all the incredible work up and all of our community together!

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This week we celebrate Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. For many, this has become a natural and expected part of our annual calendar and, for youth especially, it is hard to think of a time where te reo Māori was anything but a normal part of life in Aotearoa. To understand the importance, it is critical to understand the history of the language and why we celebrate this week.

200 years ago in 1825, almost everyone in New Zealand spoke exclusively in te reo Māori. The few hundred non-Māori were dwarfed by the Māori population and tended to assimilate into Māori communities and learn te reo Māori. With the signing of Te Tiriti in 1840, the number of foreign immigrants increased dramatically. By the late 1840s, there were around 15,000 non-Māori in NZ and the government began establishing laws around education. The education ordinance legislation in 1847 mandated English as the only language of instruction in public schools. This was then followed up in 1858 by the native schools act which established schools in rural areas with the direct aim of teaching English to Māori students.

By 1860, 165 years ago, it is thought that the number of pākehā equaled the number of Māori. In 35 short years, the proportion of New Zealanders who spoke Te Reo Māori as their first language had declined from near 100% down to 50% at best. Over the following 100 or so years, Te Reo Māori was pushed further toward the brink – going from dominant, to equal use, to a rarity – including among Māori. It is estimated that in the mid 1970’s as little as 1 in 10 Māori were able to speak te reo Māori which represented just 1.2% of the population of Aotearoa. By most modern metrics, at that time this would have been considered an endangered language.

53 years ago, the Māori language petition was presented to parliament on the 14th of September 1972. The petition, and its 30,000 signatories, asked that Te Reo Māori be offered for learning at all schools in New Zealand and is seen by many as the first step in a long journey to rescue the Māori language. Where previously children were punished for speaking te reo Māori in school, for the first time in New Zealand’s history te reo Māori was accepted. From this petition, momentum grew with kohanga reo starting in 1982 to teach Māori from early childhood and the first kura kaupapa Māori opening in 1985.

A milestone verdict was also reached with the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 recognising that te reo Māori was a taonga that the government had a responsibility to protect. This paved the way for te reo Māori finally becoming an official language of Aotearoa in 1987, almost 150 years after Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.

Over the past 38 years, the revitalisation movement for te reo Māori has borne fruit with te reo Māori use and fluency steadily rising based on statistics from successive national censuses and other statistical investigations. In spite of this growth, te reo Māori use is still dwarfed in our society compared to English with less than 5% of the population able to hold a conversation in te reo Māori. Clearly we have a long way to go yet before we, as a nation, reach an equal status of te reo Māori as a taonga of Aotearoa. It took about 150 years for te reo Māori to go from thriving to almost extinct; and it will likely take 150 years to go from near extinction back to thriving. This is why we celebrate Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori and encourage this growth for the future generations of Aotearoa.

I want to close by thanking all the parents and students for their hard work this term and the investment poured into education. Term 3 is often a hard slog with the winter months and associated illnesses and we have made it through. I hope the sun starts to come out over the next couple of weeks and everyone gets a well deserved rest.

Ngā mihi nui,

Cameron Flude

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On behalf of our whole school community, I would like to express heartfelt gratitude to our current Board of Trustees for their outstanding service over the past few years. While these quiet achievers have generally worked in the background, it is important as they finish up their current cycle to look back and appreciate the mahi this collective have put in and the unprecedented changes they have navigated.

The current Board was elected in early September 2022. The country was in the final days of the traffic light Covid restrictions; Britain still had a queen; and Costco still didn’t exist in New Zealand. Waiheke High School was half way through the first year of Mikaere October’s tenure. A lot can happen in 3 years!

Since that time, the Board have been careful stewards over a number of significant projects:

• Development of the solar power project
• Development of the school turf
• Renovation of the new commercial kitchen teaching space
• Appointment of a new principal
• Development of a new strategic plan

Alongside this, the countless smaller aspects of governance and policy has seen them oversee dozens of outdoor education experiences, support staff and student well-being, and support changes to the school for the benefit of the future of secondary education on Waiheke Island. While much of this work goes on in the background, it is critical mahi which has underpinned our student success.

A few of our current Board members are moving on at the upcoming election and there is space for new representatives to come in from our wider community. If you or someone you know is passionate about the success of Waiheke High School and have an interest in supporting the school in a governance role, please consider applying or encouraging others to apply. Details for the upcoming election are in this newsletter.

I’d like to put a special shout out to our Board Chairs across this election cycle who are both stepping down at the upcoming election, having seen their children through their years at Waiheke High School. James Petronelli (2022-2024) and Carmen Parahi (2025) have demonstrated fantastic leadership of the Board and I personally want to thank them both publicly for their guidance and support in my first years as a principal.

Ngā mihi nui,

Cameron Flude

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Get ready to explore the exciting opportunities at Waiheke High School! We warmly invite all prospective students and their parents to our upcoming Open Day on Sunday, August 3rd, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

This is your chance to:

• Discover our vibrant learning environment.
• Meet our dedicated teachers and staff.
• Learn about our wide range of academic programmes, extracurricular activities, and support services.
• Tour our facilities and see what makes Waiheke High School a special place to learn and grow.

We can’t wait to welcome you and show you all that Waiheke High School has to offer!

When: Sunday, August 3rd, 2025 (rain date Sunday, August 10th) Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

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Reporting to parents at least twice a year is an important requirement for all schools in Aotearoa, and our first formal reporting cycle for the year is approaching at the end of this term. Over the past 18 months, we have been diligently working on significant enhancements within our junior school curriculum. Some of these changes will soon be reflected in our reports to parents, and I wanted to take a moment to explain the educational philosophy guiding this innovation.

Our junior curriculum previously utilised a standards-based assessment style; mirroring the NCEA approach. While standards-based assessments certainly have their place – for instance, in situations like a driver’s license test where meeting a specific benchmark is crucial – our junior curriculum is fundamentally different. It is built upon learning progressions.

Learning progressions operate on the understanding that every student has a unique starting point and progresses at their own pace. Some students may start further ahead than their peers, while others may be at an earlier stage. Our primary focus as educators is to meet each student precisely where they are in their learning journey and to support their continuous improvement, regardless of their starting point. This approach emphasises that our junior curriculum is not about passing or failing, but rather about ensuring that learning is consistently progressing for every child.

Consequently, we have transitioned our junior curriculum assessments to a progressions-based approach. Alongside this, we are excited to move to a reporting system designed to help both parents and students clearly understand what a student knows or can do (feedback) and, crucially, what their next learning steps are (feedforward). The renowned New Zealand education researcher, John Hattie, whose work synthesizes thousands of studies, has demonstrated that providing students with this kind of clear feedforward – detailing their next steps in plain terms – is one of the most impactful strategies for accelerating student learning. We have quietly begun implementing this teaching and learning style across all our junior classes, and we are now building upon this by ensuring our reports are based on progress and articulate each student’s vital next learning steps.

Before I conclude this week’s pānui, I want to extend a very warm welcome to our two newest staff members: Princess Magpantay, who has joined our Mathematics and Statistics faculty, and Lizelle Du Preez, who has joined our English faculty. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome them to our school and have already been very impressed by their contributions.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Cameron Flude

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On Sunday, 9th March, the top premiership netball team for two years running, the Northern Mystics, travelled to Waiheke Island with their coaching and support staff to deliver a day of skill development and training motivation for young netballers aged seven to 18.

Imagined by Lady Raewyn Henry and run by Shelley Foster (FOS), Waiheke High School Sports Coordinator, the event was valuable for both the Island community and the Northern Mystics alike.

“This Masterclass was amazing for our community. It’s important for us to make these coaching clinics for our kids on the Island, as they put so much effort into travelling to get to sporting opportunities off Island,” said Foster.

Taking place just ahead of the Mystics’ travel to Melbourne for pre-season games, the idea was to create a memorable day for both the team and the community.

Running “…even better than expected,” young netballers had smiles on their faces all day while getting to play alongside and be coached by their role models in a game they love. Over 70 young people wrapped up the day with new skills and enthusiasm heading into the 2025 Netball season, as well as their very own Northern Mystics training t-shirt!

Several key partners and volunteers were recognised for making the Masterclass a reality. Shelley Foster was instrumental in organising the day, while Lady Raewyn Henry took charge of the BBQ, providing a welcoming atmosphere for all involved. Duana Upchurch and Ingrid Malifa were also vital in pulling everything together, ensuring that all the details were covered and that the day ran smoothly.

Organiser Shelley Foster credits the supporters of the event with its success.

“This was a successful day because of the wonderful people we had putting effort into making this the day it was for our kids.

“Thanks to Fullers360 for their transport sponsorship, Waiheke High School, the Recreation Centre, the Waiheke Dolphins and to Woolworths Waiheke for keeping the team fuelled. Last but definitely not least, a huge thank you to our kids who came along to the Masterclass – they were amazing on and off the court.”

With such a positive response, event organisers are excited to host more events like this in the future.

“It was a fantastic day, and we hope to make it an annual tradition for Waiheke’s young athletes. A huge thanks to everyone who made this day possible, especially the Mystics and their coaching staff for their dedication to our community. We wish them the best of luck in the 2025 Netball season!”

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