Speech for Senior Prizegiving
Thursday 28 October 2004
29.10.04
Good evening everybody and a particular welcome to our guest speaker, distinguished ex student Jacinta Lawrey.
It is now my pleasure to present the 25th Annual Prizegiving Report of Macleans College. You have a very full account of the many highlights of 2004 in a special prizegiving booklet provided for you tonight, and I intend giving only a brief summary of these in my report.
Principal Mr Byron Bentley MA.
We have just about completed our 25th year as a school, and during Queens Birthday Weekend this year a very successful and very pleasant reunion celebration was held. All of us who participated, which included the two gentlemen who laid the foundations for this very successful school, Mr Prentice and Mr McDonald, are very grateful to the outstanding organising committee led by long-time staff member and Deputy Principal, Miss Sue Miller. All of us at the school are very conscious of holding on to the basic values and foundation stones which have made this school so successful over these 25 years.
Over recent years we have been in the midst of dealing with a constant backdrop of interesting things happening - these are: quite unprecedented roll growth, which, as a zoned school, we have little control over, major curriculum changes, Macleans College inspired funding initiatives to make up for the increasingly inadequate operational grant provided by the Ministry of Education, and a very large building programme. Some brief examples:
Since 1998 the roll, which also includes, since mid 2000, international feepayers, has grown by 825 students.
In 2002 NCEA was introduced at Year 11 to replace School Certificate. It is now at all three levels and Sixth Form Certificate and University Bursary have been replaced.
Also in 2002, the Cambridge International Examination was introduced and it is now at all three senior levels.
Our third senior curriculum pathway, Year 12/13 Extension Studies, was brought in at the same time.
Without the generous help of the very large percentage of our parents who pay their school donations and our international fee paying students, many of our programmes, curriculum, co-curriculum, buildings, grounds and staffing would be badly affected. At the moment our operations grant, supplied by the Ministry of Education and excluding teachers' salaries, provides approximately 52% of our funding needs. The rest, 48%, is provided by our parent donations and international students.
We have carried out over the past five years $8 million worth of building construction which this year alone included 1.0M from our own funds. A particular balancing act here has been to ensure that their placement does not spoil the unique environment we have at Macleans.
Has all of this change taken our attention away from holding on to and enhancing our basic values and foundation stones? We don't think so. There is clear evidence to back up that assertion:
Top quality teaching constantly boosting student learning and success
Well-motivated and behaved students backed by a robust whanau house, counselling, careers, learning support system and discipline and pastoral care plan.
A constantly growing co-curricular programme that offers our students a vast array of leadership and participation opportunities, with the vital ingredient being that the sense of achievement and excitement that these activities bring is motivational to even more high quality work in the core area of the school, the classroom.
Some focal points from the highlights in the prizegiving booklet will further illustrate that we are doing our very best to "walk the talk".
Once again we were in the top 10 of New Zealand schools in the last year of the University Bursary/Scholarship examinations.
We did particularly well in all of the other examinations, New Zealand Education Scholarship Trust, 6FC, NCEA and CIE.
What is particularly noteworthy is the large number of students gaining success. Many are world class as their results attest, and what was particularly pleasing was the number of so-called borderline students who, because they worked hard and organised themselves, gained Bursaries and/or university entrance and there was this type of success at all levels. This has always been a particular feature of this school.
It is of vital importance in these times of major changes that the tried and true is retained, and it is heartening to report that our whanau house system continues to flourish and grow. The discipline and pastoral care offered under its auspices is in the main consistent, fair and well understood. Complementing its prime function is the vital role of our Student Advisory Services and our learning support areas of literacy enhancement and ESOL. Also of major importance are the leadership opportunities offered and taken up by so many students, and the positive power of doing good for other people evidenced, in particular, by our peer group support and whanau house fundraising for charity.
Our co-curricular activities are a huge growth area and the highlighted achievements speak for themselves. This level of activity is now, unfortunately, fairly unique in New Zealand secondary schools, and our sector is very much the poorer for its decline. I would like particularly to single out from a huge list of achievements and acknowledge this evening the work that went into fundraising and taking and managing a German language group to that country earlier this year, and three of our top teams, our 1st XI Girls and Boys Hockey to Australia, and the 1st Rugby XV to the UK during the recent holiday break. Mrs Wai, Mrs McConnel, Mrs Schaeffer, Mrs Bicknell, Mr Lonergan and Mr Davis are singled out for their efforts in this regard, and for the ceaseless responsibility of managing our students in places far from home over an extended period of time.
As we look forward, there are some issues in the wider world that have impacted on us and we will have to continue to deal with. Over the past 18 months the large influx in zone of families new to New Zealand, which was very high in 2001 and 2002 in particular, has abated to a much lower level. Over much of that time house prices have continued to be at a very high level in our zone and this has had an impact on the primary schools and our neighbouring intermediate, and their in zone student rolls have dropped. This affected us in a small way last year for 2004, and to a more marked degree this year in our enrolments for 2005.
Our goal is to stabilise and gradually decline, not grow our roll, as the ramifications of unplanned decline are numerous and costly on valued staff and already scant resources. Over recent months we advertised for out of zone students and have taken a small number of Years 10-13s and so far are on the way to our target figure of 450 Year 9s. Currently we have 123 out of zone and 290 in zone Year 9s enrolled, with 54 Year 9s wait-listed, along with 42 from other year levels.
Enrolments from out of zone will in all likelihood continue into the future for ourselves and our main contributing schools. Ministry of Education supplied demographics show most of the primary, intermediate and secondary school student growth to be south of our zones and south of our closest neighbouring secondary schools, Howick, Pakuranga and Edgewater.
In our curriculum areas we are continuing to enhance teaching best practice by an array of professional development strategies. Our campaign to bring all of our students up to a sound and competent level of literacy and numeracy continues with specific learning support tutoring and we are looking forward to the realisation of the long-worked-for value added testing, reporting and analysis and its findings on progress for the information of students, parents and our teaching strategies. Our senior curriculum pathways are still being bedded down, and we are mindful of ensuring that our students are never disadvantaged for successful outcomes in whatever pathway they select.
We farewell several staff this year and wish them all the very best:
Mrs Neels
Mr Beard
Miss Gordon, who has leave from the school for 2005
Dr Thomas also on leave for 2005.
Mrs Curlett, who has been a stalwart of the college for a long time and a very conscientious and professional Head of Text and Information Management. We wish her well for a long and enjoyable retirement.
A special acknowledgement must be made to one of our long-serving staff members, Head of our Guidance Counselling area, Mrs Richardson. Unfailingly energetic, conscientious, supportive and highly competent, Mrs Richardson has had a major and positive impact on the school, and in particular in the vital student support area. Her championing of and work in particular in the peer group support area, and with our increasingly popular Intercultural Club, has brought other exciting dimensions to our busy school. We wish her a long and busy retirement.
I would also like to acknowledge for their ongoing work:
Our Business Managers and support staff who are highly professional and committed and are always a pleasure to work with;
Our caretaking, grounds, building and maintenance staff for their ongoing cheerfulness and diligence in ensuring our students have a quality learning environment;
Our parents for their consistent support;
The PTA, who continue to work hard for Macleans and provide many extras which enhance the work of the school;
The school prefects, house captains, cultural, sports, academic and peer group support leaders, school guides, our students who coach teams, escort visitors and are supportive in so many ways, and particular thanks to Megan and Cameron, our 2004 Head Prefects.
The staff for their dedication, professionalism and unwavering support of the students in their care in and out of the classroom;
The highly supportive senior management team for their talent, good humour and professionalism;
The BOT who always have the interests of the students at heart, for their extreme conscientiousness and interest. They are very well chaired by Mr Martin Paget, and I thank him personally for his ongoing support.
Finally, to all of our students, good luck and organisation for the forthcoming examinations, and our best wishes to all of those who are leaving us.
To everybody, best wishes for the remainder of the year and a safe, enjoyable holiday and festive season.
