My Experience

My goal as Principal of Kamo Primary school will be to use the experiences that I have had as a beginning teacher, senior teacher, syndicate leader and as a parent and acting Principal to ensure that the positive pathway that the school is on continues and is enhanced with my own ideas and uniqueness.  Kamo Primary School is a unique environment in itself and one that needs to continue to be nurtured and grown by those that are a part of it. I believe in the proverb that "It takes a village to raise a child". The parents, teachers and wider community of the Kamo Primary School village all need to have an equal and active role in our students and their learning.  
I always value all ideas and opinions of others and believe it is essential to learn from others.
 I will never shy away from a challenge and will lead by example but I am not afraid to make tough decisions when one is needed to be made.

I believe that the experience that I have had coupled with my youth and sense of humour make me the perfect candidate for the position of Principal at Kamo Primary School. I have a great mix of life experience, professional experience in schools and the education sector and believe that my own personality, professionalism, drive and dedication to education make me stand out above the rest.


I have been teaching for 10 years. My career began at Waipu Primary School in a year 6 classroom. I worked as a beginning teacher with the Principal Paul Ramsey as my mentor and tutor teacher. To this day I still regard his hard work and experience with me vital to the way my own practice and teaching experience has progressed. I took away from Waipu Primary the understanding that your community is as vital to the school just as the school is to the community. I further learnt that experiences are one of the most valuable teaching and learning tools we can provide for our students and to let the students guide their own learning.


I then won a position at Kamo Primary School again working in the senior school. I have had many different roles and taught across the school which shoes my adaptability and willingness to work with any and everyone and to not shy away from a new challenge.


Early into my time at Kamo Primary I took on the role of Unit holder and co-ordinator for PE and Sports. Being fascinated by politics and employment rights I then became NZEI representative and have held this position at two different times now for a total of 6 years.


An opportunity then arose to manage a team and become syndicate leader of the year 3 and 4 students and teachers I applied and was agin successful. I had a great understanding of the management structure at school and had some great mentors in the management team to learn from.  I have always loved the challenge of leading people and love to be in charge. This opportunity to lead was also a way for me to try new things within my team to strengthen our planning, practice and ways in which we communicate with each other and with our parents. I believe that my team is focused, informed and willing to take risks to get the best out of their own practice and the students learning. We are always looking for new initiatives to save us time in order to give more back to our students. We plan together, collaborate, team teach and share ideas and reflections constantly. We have an environment of trust and honesty and our relationships with each other are very strong as well even though we come from a vast range of ages and experience levels. The quote that we use to begin each planning session is the following...

  "The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other. Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives."

This quote focuses us and reminds each other why we are here doing what we are doing and why we are so important together. I believe it is such a true quote as without each other we will always only do what we know and we will only know what we know. Working together strengthens our practice, knowledge and can only benefit our students. 

As acting Principal in 2014 I ensured that collaboration happened wherever possible. Staff meetings were not 1 person driven but open discussion times where we shared ideas as opposed to just listening to someone talk. I encouraged the use of google docs to allow planning to happen more collaboratively and I also ensured that teachers visited each others rooms to share ideas and to learn from each other. 

With the focus in education moving towards ILE or MLE spaces and environments I will happily lead the charge and change for this to happen at Kamo Primary School. We as a syndicate have already made positive changes for this to happen and I believe that with the right support, time and leader that it will be an organic transition for teachers and students to move to this new way of teaching and learning. 

As a teacher I have talked the talk and walked the walk and as a Principal I will continue to do this as a role model for others. 

"Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change."