‘‘We are not scary people’’
This year’s head boy and girl and their deputies are continuing a theme that started with 2014’s heads.
Head boy Daniel Lansdaal and deputy girl Tayla-Jay Dearlove had school leadership roles at Wairere Primary and head girl Danielle Pearce and deputy boy Jordan Smith had leadership roles at Matamata Primary just as last year’s leaders had.
The promising head students said they started thinking about applying for the roles in year 11 or 12 after getting encouragement from various people. Danielle said she started considering it seriously after musing about it with Jordan. ‘‘He was really encouraging,’’ she said.
Daniel started thinking about after it was suggested to him at the year 11 prizegiving.
The group said they were motivated by wanting to help others and also knew it would look good on their CVs and when applying for scholarships.
They knew their biggest challenge would be increasing student participation in activities like sport days. ‘‘We want to improve this but we know it comes down to the students and their attitude at the end of the day and that is hard to change.’’
They also want to lessen the gap between their year group and the year nines. ‘‘We are not scary people.’’
They would encourage their year group to talk more with younger age groups and to cultivate an approachable image so they could give those younger groups more support and advice.
They encouraged all students to approach school, and their attitude to it, in a positive way.’’ Enjoy it because it doesn’t last long.’’
Daniel, who received prizes at last year’s prizegiving for coming top of digital computer science, accounting and maths, said he was pretty confident he would study computer science at Waikato University next year. Tayla-Jay, who came first equal in English at the prizegiving, was looking at studying to become a primary school teacher at the same university. Jordan was looking at following his father into the police force and Danielle might study accounting through a university or try and get an internship with an accounting company.