From the Executive Principal

A MESSAGE FROM THE

Executive Principal

In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location”; education is about “relationships, relationships, relationships”. While our beautiful grounds, facilities and infrastructure are all critical for the safe and inspiring delivery of teaching and learning, the heart of great schools is always the quality of the people and the relationships they form.

The fundamental purpose of education is to help students learn and achieve. Recent advances in neuroscience confirm people need to feel safe and supported for them to successfully learn. The heart of education is therefore the relationships between the student and teacher. Everything depends on how productive and successful that relationship is.

Reassuringly, the Education Review Office (ERO) conducted their regular independent school review of Kristin in March of this year. We have just received their final written report, which has confirmed our exceptionally high-quality standards of tuition, as well as endorsing our strong policies and procedures around ensuring our physical and social environment is safe and supportive.

Schools also need to be aspirational places for their students, where they can safely discover their passions and develop their strengths and abilities. Here at Kristin this is clearly evident in our outstanding Performing Arts programmes, such as this year’s superb Senior School production of Blood Brothers. In addition, our school camps provide safe yet challenging environments for our young people to extend themselves.

Within the classroom these strong relationships and aspirational places are dependent on quality teaching. Research (e.g. Hattie, 2009) confirms what parents and students always knew, that quality teachers make the greatest impact on the outcomes of student learning within schools. Therefore, fostering great staff must be an ongoing commitment, which we are focused on here at Kristin. This means a commitment to supporting and nurturing all our staff, as they are the people who have the direct impact on the learning and growth of our young people.

This year we started with a full-day conference for all our staff on the theme: “better conversations”. Better conversations can dramatically improve teacher and student learning, through asking better questions, fostering dialogue, nurturing trust, making connections and listening to understand better. Better conversations also improve workplace environments, as everyone’s wellbeing improves when we are heard, respected and engaged.

The success of a child’s education cannot be left to chance but must be deliberate and intentional. Our teachers and staff are not infallible superheroes, but they are wonderful professionals with great passion, commitment and dedication to help bring out the very best in our students. The time and focus with regular staff professional development is part of what we are looking to set into our school structure.

We recognise that the success of our students here at Kristin is shared, just as the old adage goes: “It takes a village to raise a child”. This deliberate and collective effort was obvious in the magnificent efforts of our staff to ensure our Camp Week was able to proceed between the two Auckland Alert Level 3 lockdowns. Having such a unified staff was a key reason for our success in delivering our remote learning programmes and transitioning smoothly back onto our campus.

Our relationships, aspiration, growth and collective support are our strengths as a community. Moving forward, enhancing these will remain our commitment: a focus on our people and their ongoing development, with the intention of making a real and positive difference for our students and their learning and achievement.

HE AHA TE MEA NUI O TE AO

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD? HE TANGATA, HE TANGATA, HE TANGATA

IT IS THE PEOPLE; IT IS THE PEOPLE; IT IS THE PEOPLE MĀORI PROVERB

Mark Wilson

EXECUTIVE PRINCIPAL

Caption: Far left, Year 9 Tongariro Camp, Left, Cream-pie throwing at the Summer Carnival.