Praised for school science
It seems Tokoroa’s Forest View High School science students are in good hands under the leadership of science head Kamal Nair.
Nair’s hard work and dedication to seeing science embraced at the South Waikato school was recognised during the prestigious 10th annual Kudos Hamilton Science Excellence Awards at Claudelands Arena on Thursday night.
The aim of The Kudos Awards was to celebrate the best of Waikato scientists and their world leading research and innovation.
Nair, who has been at Forest View High School for three years and previously taught at Tokoroa High School, was one of three finalists for the Wintec Secondary Science Teacher /Educator/ Communicator Award. St Peter’s School’s Sara Loughnane and Te Awamutu College’s Nataliia Kravchenko were also nominated with Loughnane going through to win.
Nair said he was honoured to have been nominated and given the chance to rub shoulders with some of the country’s world renowned scientists during the event’s black tie dinner.
He was nominated by Auckland University’s Dr Paul Lowe, who is also his science advisor.
‘‘He looked at what I do here at Forest View High School, such as taking kids out on field trips for contextual based learning, accessing a wide range of learning opportunities for the students such as e-learning through Google Classroom, targeting students early in the year and monitoring their progress to make sure they don’t fall out and that they are achieving their goals for the year, and seeing that Maori and Pasifika achievement is the same as other ethnic groups,’’ he said.
Nair said student engagement in science at the school has vastly improved as a result and he is feeling positive about the future. Through more community based initiatives he hopes to further it still.
‘‘We have gone from having two classes to three doing level one and science is not even compulsory here at Forest View for year 11,’’ he said.
‘‘I have also introduced level two science and our numbers are going up year by year. One of the reasons for that is because students are achieving in science and they are enjoying the success.’’