Baptism by flood for new Milford principal

New Milford School principal Lucy Naylor barely had her feet under the desk when she was dealing with an emergency – the January 27 flood and its aftermath.

The school was supposed to open for the 2023 year on January 31 but this was delayed until February 7.

Much of the intervening week was spent cleaning up flood damage. The school had two classrooms red-stickered and a slip at its lakeside boundary and had to deal with a large fallen tree, in addition to flooded classrooms and general water damage.

When the Observer interviewed Naylor, water damage was visible above her desk and her dog Biscuit was at school, a temporary refugee from a flood-damaged doggie daycare.

The floods had “a huge impact” on the school community, she said.

“Some have been severely impacted by the floods – it’s had a big effect on the children who need belonging and a sense of security.”

The event did have a “silver lining”, however, bringing parents and staff together in the big clean-up.

“I’ve had a lot of great conversations over mops and buckets,” Naylor said.

“It showed me the strength of the community and staff and the standing the school has in the local area.”

Naylor comes to Milford School after five and a half years as principal at Stanley Bay School, and previous roles as deputy principal at Auckland Normal Intermediate, Belmont Intermediate, and Manuka Primary in Glenfield, and nine years teaching at Bayswater School.

One of Stanley Bay’s major fundraisers has been a ‘Stampede Mud Run’, in which Naylor was an enthusiastic competitor. The irony of the mud arriving from nature in her first week was not lost on her.

The move to Milford School was “the right time for Stanley Bay and the right time for me in my career.

“Milford is a bigger school and a bigger challenge.” Twice the size in fact: Stanley Bay has a roll of around 250 and 30 staff, whereas Milford has a roll of around 500 and around 60 staff.

Naylor was also keen to be involved with a school which offered the International Baccalaureate programme, a style of learning she had seen in action at Auckland Normal.

Like Stanley Bay, Milford is very much part of its community.

Its pool is open to the public, its hall can be hired and its fields are often used for weekend sports.

Naylor describes Milford School as “high functioning”, with excellent teachers and school board.

One of her challenges is to work out how to take the school forward. She said it will be through fine tuning, rather than major changes, and not before she spends the next few months “building relationships with students, staff and the community”.

She has also been North Shore Principals Association (NSPA) President for two years and on its executive for four.

The NSPA represents member principals from 65 North Shore primary and intermediate schools and also offers pastoral care.

“There was lots of support during the floods… other principals getting in touch with each other asking if you were all right.”

In emergencies this could be invaluable.

Being a school principal could be the greatest job in the world but also incredibly isolating and lonely without such support.

In her spare time, Naylor runs, does Pilates and a bit of yoga, walks Biscuit, reads and spends as much time on the Coromandel as she can.

With the school opening last week kids were back on the school grounds and in the swimming pool but life had not returned to total normality.

Last Friday, Naylor had been organising the school’s property manager to collect more sandbags from Bunnings in preparation for the weekend’s threatened storm.

“We can only hope we don’t have too many of these wild weather events,” she says.