Farewelling Sue Whale

Mrs Susanne (Sue) Whale has been an Art teacher at WHS since 2001 and Director of International Students from 2010 – 2021. After teaching for 42 years, she has decided to retire at the end of 2021. Sue is married to John. Their daughter, Rebeka is a Creative in Wellington and son, Joshua, lives in Rwanda where he and his team work to transform petrol to e-transportation. Josh and his wife Claire had Sue’s first grandchild, Luka, recently. Born and educated in Germany, Sue Whale met Kiwi, John, and they travelled in a VW van from Europe to India and then via public transport through Nepal, Thailand and Singapore to NZ over a year. They loved experiencing all these different cultures, meeting people in countries such as Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and India.

After arriving in NZ, Sue got to experience life on John’s family’s Rangitikei sheep and beef farm. They got married and Sue started teaching Art at Wanganui Girls College in 1978. Further study and work for John meant moving to Palmerston North, Blenheim and, in 1994, Whakatāne. Sue taught Art at Awatapu College, Marlborough Girls’ College, Trident High School, Rangatahi College, Kawerau College and, since 2001, Whakatāne High School. Sue was HOD Art at Rangatahi, Kawerau and WHS until July 2018, when Aaron Hurley took that position. Sue loved teaching Art, helping thousands of students develop techniques and ideas for their art, helping them create paintings, photographs, prints, designs and sculptures they were proud of. Sue says Art Education in NZ is organised by passionate Art Educators who give students in-depth opportunities for learning by separating the art subjects - Painting, Photography, design, sculpture, printmaking and Art History - into different subjects. This has led to a very high standard of work at secondary school which carries over into tertiary art education, helping to make NZ famous in creative professional fields. Sue hopes that recent moves to change art education in NZ do not replace this successful model with one that offers less opportunity for in-depth learning. Sue enjoyed the excellent professional development that was offered throughout the years, particularly learning about Māori Art from famous Gordon Toveytrained artists such as Sandy Adshett, Cliff Whiting and Para Matchitt, as well as Best Practice workshops during the time that Art transitioned from School Certificate to NCEA. Sue and a number of other Art educators were called to verify Level 1 NCEA assessments in Wellington for a number of years where she enjoyed discussing art and forming friendships with other HODs. In 2010, after almost a year of battling breast cancer, Sue returned to school as the ‘Director of International Students’ as well as HOD Art. Because of her international background and fluency in German, Sue was sent overseas to recruit fee-paying international students to WHS, to run the International Office and to look after an ever-increasing number of students (mainly Europeans from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Norway, as well as some Korean and Japanese students). When Marine Studies and Diving was introduced in the school’s programme, WHS became an even more popular school choice for students looking for outdoor experiences, including surfing. Sue said she enjoyed the challenge of developing the International Programme and saw great value in giving students the opportunity to meet young people from other cultures.

When Covid struck, many students just wanted to go home. Sue and her International Programme team spent a lot of time online and on the phone in order to ensure that they could safely farewell all of the international students who were sent off on emergency flights home. A few stayed on at WHS, yet international student numbers diminished significantly. While sad to farewell students early (and have them go home to countries with alarming community transmission rates), Sue welcomed the reduction in work pressure. She hopes that international students can return to WHS one day. Besides art teaching and working with ‘International Students’, Sue helped to get positive messages about WHS out to the local media and overseas publications and, more recently, social media. She has taken thousands of photographs, documenting school events. She’s captured countless school balls, sports events and much, much more.

Sue was involved with amateur theatre, musicals and choir singing in Hamburg, Blenheim and Whakatāne. While at Trident High School, Sue was on a team of teachers who helped the school to win the national Stage Challenge title. The team was then invited by IBM to produce a longer dance drama for their award shows in Auckland and Wellington. IBM paid for all the costs, plus donated computers to the school for the successful Global Village Show. Sue also directed several successful Stage Challenge productions with students, winning regionals a number of times. After arriving at WHS, she helped with a number of stage productions as set designer and production manager, including Sightz and Soundz every second year. Sue has also been involved with Community Arts since arriving in NZ. In Whakatāne she is a member, and newly reelected, chairperson, of Arts Whakatāne - the organisation which is responsible for the annual Molly Morpeth Art Award and the Summer Arts Festival. Sue says she loves all the arts and firmly believes that engagement in the arts is an important component in the wellbeing of a community. Sue will be dearly missed here at WHS. She has given so much to our school - and other high schools across the motu - and has proven herself to be a talented, enthusiastic and innovative educator and leader. Sue, we wish you all the best for your retirement and hope that you thoroughly enjoy your newfound time doing what you love. We know you’ll still be heavily involved in the arts, and look forward to seeing your next ventures beyond the gates of WHS. Nga mihi nui ki a koe. Poroporoaki mo tenei wa.