Official School Opening

It's hard to believe that Amesbury School is now officially opened and we are hurtling towards having been in operation for half a year. I understand now why Sarah Martin, wonderful principal of Stonefields School in Mt Wellington, Auckland, advised me at the end of last year (as they approached the end of their first year)  to make the most of every moment because it would be no time at all before our foundation year was over. She was right! I am sitting here wondering where the time has gone.

Often at these moments in my life when I have been left wondering where the time has gone, I am also left asking myself, "And what have I achieved?" However, this time I am not asking myself what we have managed to achieve in the time we have been open as a school. That was very obvious on the opening day. As I watched our students perform a stirring haka powhiri and walked around seeing the activities that were taking place through the eyes of the Minister, and then sat with our school community to watch the concert that followed the official opening, I was amazed at the breadth of what our children are involved in, at the confidence they displayed and their willingness just to give things a go. I was thrilled with the enthusiasm and passion they put into whatever it was that they were involved in.

If only you could have all seen how articulate the "school tour group" was as these senior students accompanied the Minister on the tour of our school and explained to her what she was seeing, and then their politeness in hurrying her along, at times, to make sure that the junior students did not miss out on their opportunity to shine. And shine they did! No wonder the Minister commented in her pre-budget speech on Amesbury School when talking about quality teaching being about high expectations and finding what works for every child in the classroom. She said, "Another good example is Amesbury School, here in Wellington, where the students are engaged through art, music, dance, multi-media activities, expressed equally naturally in beautiful English and te reo Māori, and across all age groups."


The question she was asked later on TV3's The Nation was, perhaps, one that many were asking. How do all the activities our students are involved in (The Arts) contribute to achievement in reading, writing and maths? The answer to this is easy .... there are a huge number of research projects that show a clear relationship between The Arts and achievement in reading writing and maths. For example, a study of 25,000 schools showed that students with high involvement in the arts performed significantly better on standardised achievement tests than their peers who had low involvement in The Arts. More about this in another BLOG post.....

I was very proud of our students and our school community on Opening Day. I want to say a HUGE thank you to our students who gave so much so willingly and pulled off a memorable day. I want to thank our incredibly talented team of teachers who have embraced the vision of Amesbury School and, in such a short time, have managed to put so much of it into action. I love the way a culture has developed in which juniors and seniors do many activities together (tuakana-teina). Talking to the senior students, I know they really appreciate and value the increased opportunities to mix with the younger students.

Thank you everyone for a great Opening Day!!!

I am proud of many things, and what we have achieved to date at Amesbury School has exceeded my expectations and has exceeded the expectations of the EBOT. However, we are on a journey and we have no intention of sitting back on our laurels. There is still much to be done. Now that "the madness" is over, we are looking forward to moving into our next development phase. We are also looking forward to six weeks of really settled 21st c teaching and learning in the Amesbury way. More information on what this will look like will be provided in future BLOG postings.

Below are a few photos from the opening day. The full set will be made available over time. We plan to put together a full set of "memories" from this foundation year for each family. We have not yet decided just what this will look like but we will definitely present something to each family.