Woman at the top of boys’ school
Kelston head won’t compete with rugby greats like Graham Henry
Teducation he first woman to lead one of New Zealand’s great rugby boys’ schools says she will not compete with her last three predecessors.
Singapore-born Adeline Blair, 49, named on Wednesday as principal of Kelston Boys High School, becomes the first woman to lead any state boys’ school in Auckland.
The school’s last three heads, Sir Graham Henry (1987-96), Stephen Watt (1996-2011) and Brian Evans (2011-17), were all prominent rugby players and coaches.
Blair manages the school’s lawn bowls team.
“The past three principals have always been really stalwarts in the rugby world. I can’t and I won’t compete with that,” she said.
“That’s them. But what I bring to the school is something that will match what they produced. Now it’s my turn to show what I can do for the school.”
Born and educated in Singapore, Blair trained as a primary school teacher in Scotland and came to New Zealand with her British husband, who works in information technology, in 1993. The couple have two daughters now aged 24 and 22.
Blair’s entire New Zealand teaching career has been at Kelston Boys. She started teaching English for adults in the school’s community education division in 1996, and joined the fulltime staff still teaching English as a second language in 2002.
Since then she has taught maths, social studies, geography and tourism, became deputy principal in 2015 and acting principal after Evans left to head Wesley College in January. Asked about her other interests, she said: “My school is my community. I devote a lot of my time to extracurricular stuff, helping with the homework centre, helping sports teams.”
The board chose her to keep the top job from a field of nine applicants and its announcement on Facebook has drawn an outpouring of emotion.
Former student Daniel Tuala posted: “Wow congratulations ms!!! Mrs Blair was the best tourism teacher I ever had. Always wanted the best out of us boys. And she had jokes too.”
Another former student Cam Webster said: “Congrats Ms Blair! Youre an awesome, considerate and fair person.”
Like other West Auckland schools, Kelston Boys has lost students to richer central Auckland schools since schools became self-managing in 1989. Its roll slid from a peak of 1250 in the 1980s to 1100 in 2010, and has since plunged to 662. European students have abandoned the school, dropping from 371 in the year 2000 to 42 last month. Most students are now Pasifika (62 per cent) or Maori (19 per cent).
However, Blair said West Auckland’s growing primary school rolls pointed to Kelston Boys’ roll growing again.
Blair becomes one of only four women leading NZ boys’ schools, joining Susan Hassall at Hamilton Boys’ High School, Karen Gilbert-Smith at Whangarei Boys’ High School and Deborah Marshall-Lobb at Northcote’s Hato Petera College.
The sole male principal of a New Zealand girls’ school, Stephen Bryan, said he was seen as an “oddity” when he took the helm at Sacred Heart College in Napier 12 years ago. He now leads St Catherine’s College in Wellington and believes attitudes are changing.