Board of Trustees Chair

Right Mr Russ Browne –Board of Trustees Chairperson

Board of Trustees CHAIRPERSON

Dear parents / family / whanau, it is my pleasure to be able to introduce myself as the Board Chair of Ōtūmoetai College.

My wife and I reside in Matua, and our two children have been educated at Ōtūmoetai College. I am the Managing Partner in a local accounting firm, Manning Warner Browne and am committed to good governance as a member of the Institute of Directors, and a director and chairman in several private businesses.

The last three years have seen a significant amount of change at Ōtūmoetai College with the retirement of a long serving principal, the appointment of a new Principal, ongoing recruitment within the senior leadership team, and success in sourcing funding from the government to rebuild a significant component of the school’s infrastructure.

The Board of Trustees is in the very fortunate position to see what all of this means to our teachers, and I can assure our parent community and our students that the improvement in our academic performance means a huge amount. It cannot, and does not however, come without enormous effort on the part of our teaching staff. I am continually amazed at the efforts of our teachers in supporting our students to achieve their potential, efforts which include, for many, a very significant number of hours after school and during weekends. On behalf of the Board I would like to take this opportunity to thank our teachers for their enormous contribution This is just the beginning of a journey our school is on to establish Ōtūmoetai College as a leading centre of learning for the children in our community. The school board and staff are focused on providing a safe environment for all students in which they are challenged to improve their academic performance, encouraged to engage develop and extend themselves, and valued as part of a diverse community of capabilities, backgrounds, and cultures. Ōtūmoetai College is continuing to lift its academic performance and is outperforming many other schools within the region. This is something which we should be very proud of. However, there is still work to be done. The need to improve the academic performance of our Maori students towards the continuing increase of the reputation of the college within our community and within educational circles generally.

We are currently in the planning stages of a $47 million school redevelopment project. This building programme affords the school an exciting opportunity to develop our pedagogical approach alongside the development of a new school environment. We recognise that the buildings we are designing for today are intended to be there for perhaps fifty to sixty years before replacement. Our goal as a board is to ensure that the learning and the soon to be constructed learning spaces will remain relevant, engaging and challenging for the students of today, and, just as importantly, for the students oftomorrow.

In keeping with the proposed new building design, the Board has approached Woods Agency to create a new branding story that reflects a more contemporary design and feel for our school. The express intent has been to develop a “brand” that makes our students proud.

The following pages highlight some of this journey.