Final post as Tumuaki of Hornby High School

When I began this professional blog seven years ago I had one key purpose in mind.

It was originally meant to document our Hornby High School journey for our community to see and celebrate. Over the seven years it has taken on other purposes too. 

It has allowed me to clarify my thinking as I have written lines describing what I have done and seen, and more importantly what others have done.

It has allowed me to keep our vision (a centre of creative excellence) to the forefront for our staff team and our community. 

And it has allowed me to model something important that we expect from all of our learners (staff and students alike): the practice of reflecting and blogging, an essential piece of the 'share' component of our 'learn, create, share' pedagogy and of our participation in the Manaiakalani kaupapa. This in particular has been transformational, something that is life changing for many akonga and many communities.

The Hornby High School part of my own journey is now at an end, although I am hopeful that the Hornby Hornby High School journey towards creative excellence can and will continue.  

I am grateful that the Hornby High Board of Trustees has agreed to pass the intellectual property rights to this blog to me so that I might be allowed to continue to develop my own thinking in the place, building on this past seven years of mahi, and to share that thinking with others. Their generosity is gratefully received.

So this is my last post as Tumuaki of Hornby High School. Future posts here will be a reflection of my thinking not as Tumuaki but as a private individual.

It seemed fitting that I share this piece of my own creativity at this point in time - a poem I crafted to reflect the end of my formal time in schools, the end to a 44 year career, a career that did indeed start when chalk was the norm, when overhead projectors were the new technology challenging teachers, when quite. a few teachers still wore gowns, and when schools were so often dull dreary environments of well worn and chipped paint work.

Haere rā, e kia ora,  e hoa mā!!!!