Principal moves on to help other principals
Being a school principal/tumuaki can be time-consuming and at times stressful, principal Pete Mitchener says.
But when it comes to community-building, the job gets top marks.
“I feel really privileged that I know so many families now ... and feel I’ve got a real connection with a lot of them,” the outgoing principal of Broadgreen Intermediate said.
“It’s been a collective effort to raise the students within our community.”
Mitchener is changing tack, to help adults working in the field.
Last week he resigned as principal of Broadgreen to take up a job supporting new school principals in the top half of the South Island.
While it had been “special” to become principal of Broadgreen Intermediate six years ago (he himself had gone to school there as a child, and taught there as a rookie teacher), the new opportunity had arisen in a field that was “really exciting”, Mitchener said.
“[Being a principal] is a big role. Unfortunately, a lot of principals are starting and then, early on, stopping again,” he said.
“We need to support these beginning principals to keep them in the journey.”
Mitchener has spent 30 years in education, the last 20 as a principal, including at nearby primary Stoke School, before Broadgreen.
The range of needs among students had grown over the last two decades along with the stresses the community was under, he said.
“We just have a lot of anxiety ... behavioural difficulties ... trauma backgrounds.
“Our support sometimes seems inadequate for some of our students.
“If I could dream, it would be that every teacher would get some learning support assistance, not for particular individual students, but just for their class in general.”
Class sizes should also be reduced, with more trained counsellors in intermediate schools, he said.
Elsewhere, it would be interesting to see the effect of a new requirement to teach at least an hour of reading, writing and maths each a day, he said.
Reading and writing started to become fused at intermediates – for children in years 7 and 8 – as they headed towards English as a single subject in year 9, he said.
“It’s a really good time to look at what does a reading programme at intermediate look like ... what is reading compared to writing ... and oracy, where does that fit in?”
The school was looking at how it could also continue to deliver other curriculum areas like science and music “sincerely”, alongside the daily, hourly requirements of reading, writing and maths, he said.
“We could all say I’m reading a recipe, so using reading in foods – well, that’s not teaching children to read.
“So it’s just making sure that we have time to have the teaching to read, and the time to use reading.”
Mitchener is due to leave Broadgreen Intermediate at the end of term one in April.
Highlights of his time there included reflecting Te Tiriti O Waitangi, he said.
“I’m really proud of how we all as one at school have our vision around Kia Whakamana, Kia Toa, empowering for life, our partnerships with Ngāti Koata ... a wonderful feeling of togetherness.”
His new job would include passing on tips for, among other things, dealing with stress.
“Very early in my teaching career, one of my tutor teachers said if you don’t live, you have nothing to give.
“If you’re not having outside school activities ... then it’s very hard to come back on Monday and have that vitality and that spontaneity to show the students that ... everything’s going well.
“It is constantly a balancing act.”