Leadership the making of schools

I was pleased to read David Hood’s letter pointing out all schools should be good schools and that a system that favours the few and disadvantages the many should not be acceptable to New Zealanders. Tomorrow’s Schools made it possible for some schools to better engage with their local community, but failed far too many, especially as other government policies contributed to New Zealand’s growing economic and social inequality.

I taught at Hillary College in the new state housing area of Otara in the 1960s and 70s. The college’s motto, “Towards Far Horizons”, chosen by visionary principal Garfield Johnson, was adapted from the challenge to rethink how schools might draw out the true potential of Ma¯ ori pupils, articulated in John Watson’s 1967 publication, Horizons of Unknown Power.

By 1976 when Garfield retired, Hillary College had held the first conference of Polynesian students, the metropolitan Polynesian speech contest and the original PolyFest, received the Governor-General’s Youth Award and a procession of distinguished visitors from Margaret Thatcher, then UK’s Minister of Education and Science, to Unesco representatives and eminent artists and academics.

All schools can be good schools, given visionary leadership and competent governance.

Warren Lindberg, Hobsonville.