The Devonport Flagstaff Page 8
May 20, 2016
First female principal at Takapuna Grammar
Mary Nixon has been appointed the first female principal at Takapuna Grammar School (TGS). The announcement that Nixon was to replace the departing Simon Lamb was made by the TGS board of trustees last week. Nixon says a key reason for her move to TGS was to be closer to family. After 10 years at the helm of Napier Girls’ High School (NGHS), Nixon returns to the North Shore, where she started out as a teacher, raised her family and where her mother, daughter and grandchildren still live. “Having family in Takapuna was part of the attraction for coming back. And Takapuna Grammar School being very much a family school resonates with me too,” she says. Nixon knows TGS well. She left for Napier after a two-year stint as deputy principal under Simon Lamb. Both had worked together previously at Rangitoto College, where Nixon had been promoted from being a science and biology teacher to dean and then deputy principal. Nixon says her experience at NGHS “sits well with where TGS is at. Both are traditional but also contemporary schools and I like that. When I was here previously, we were just starting a review of preparing students differently for the changing global Returning to TGS… former deputy principal Mary Nixon takes the top job world. It will be good to have a stop and what needs to happen next. Our key goal is to best of their personal abilities. We worked a pause, look at where the school is at and raise happy and productive citizens,” she says. lot on transferring skills, such as music and During her time in Napier, Nixon says she sport, and found ways to show them off in the learned a lot about girls, after having worked students’ school work. NCEA has the necessary only in co-ed schools before. “We have 1,000 flexibility to let them do that. Meanwhile we young women at the school, with about 170 also had a real lift in achievements outside the of them boarding. It’s a wonderful 132-year- classroom,” she says. Nixon is also a fan of the TGS International old school with a lot of tradition and a strong Baccalaureate programme. “I spent my recent sisterhood,” she says. During her tenure, NGHS increased its sabbatical looking into it. It is a much more scholarships from 11 to 44, which she says structured programme than NCEA and has was due to a focus on personal excellence. “We an excellent reputation. To have the two wanted students to really work to the absolute qualifications, with different strengths, brings great diversity to what the school offers, Are you a registered which is both classic and contemporary, like musculoskeletal physiotherapist the whole school is,” she says. and want to work locally? Nixon grew up in Gisborne and went to university in Dunedin and then Christchurch, A6 POSTCARD An opportunity has arisenPROOF to where she trained as a teacher. join an expanding Devonport Her husband’s job brought the couple to practice located in a gym. Auckland, via the Bay of Plenty. The Nixons We see a wide range of patients lived in Browns Bay, Castor Bay and eventually Member of the Real Estate Institute of NZ Licensed Real Estate Agent (REAA 2008) Takapuna, while Nixon briefly taught at Long and have a rapidly growing Bay College and Rangitoto College before she database with strong referrals. Real Estate Sales took time out for seven years to be with her two Fixed Commission!! We are located in the Job Number: 179763 young children Leah and Will. $12,500 plus GST Devonport HealthWe and Gym Club “They are both now in their thirties. Will are a new Real Estate company offering a simple Includes Advertising! cost effective alternative for selling your property. works in London as an engineer and Leah was in Wairoa Road, next to a lawyer, but is now back in Takapuna with 19 Years Selling Locally the tennis courts. Flat fee commission of $10,000 plus GST two young children,” says Nixon. Information Website Which can save you thousands!! Nixon says she is glad she will be spared Email yOur dEtails tO: www.sellingsimply.co.nz house-hunting too. “Thankfully we still own sarah meale our old place in Takapuna and didn’t sell it Joe Martin at multi sport Physiotherapy ltd when we left for Napier in 2006.” 0274 326 731 multisportphysio@gmail.com Mobile : 0274 326 731 Nixon takes up her new position at the joe@sellingsimply.co.nz joe@sellingsimply.co.nz Selling Simply www.sellingsimply.co.nz beginning of Term 3.
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