3 November 2023

A couple of weeks ago, the 13 Principals from Motū Kairangi got together to work on the strategic direction of the 'bigger us'. Four key words sang out equity, empowerment, connection and enrichment.... we have some work to do. Although at this stage plenty is up in the air in terms of political direction, many things when working with children and whānau remain constant.

With some thinking done at the more macro Kāhui level, more mini macro followed with the Trustees engaged in a great conversation on Monday evening. We had plenty to go on thanks to your investment in responding to "What does Success mean for our children?" This has culminated in a fantastic document which can be referred to time and time again for a whole lot of planning.

Schools find themselves in a new planning and reporting cycle and are to develop a new 2 year Strategic Plan - it's quite a short cycle. Reviewing our current Strategic Plan and then comparing this with your voices and your children's voices, we were able to gauge what has had its time or where we may need to head towards now. This is always quite an invigorating exercise - full of energy and hope, I like to think. As we look towards the second part of the final school term for 2023, I feel it's just the antidote to close the lid on the 'so much on' box and get excited about the 'what next?' box. We have to keep moving!

So, what did we come up with that summarises this richness we were provided with? (Disclaimer - it's at a high level, the 'what?' and will become deconstructed down into more of a detailed 'how?'.)

"To challenge and promote growth of all individual students by focusing on our Learner Attributes."

So, that's it for now and there will be more to come......

How many more sleeps until the Fair now? I love our signs out and about - they stand out as they are different to the rest!

Roll on the 12th and all our support goes right behind our terrific Fair Team - your navigation is splendid! In fact, calm, grounded, thoughtful and, yes, splendid!