At the beginning of the year, the Year 13 leadership group set the school a wero, or challenge, from Winston Churchill that ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”. Little did we know at the time we were going to need so much courage this year. Unparalleled, extraordinary, unique and unprecedented – are all words that have been used to describe the times we experienced this year and may continue to experience. This global pandemic has created adversity for many in their homes, in their places of work and for our students at school. And while we cannot prevent adversity, adversity can make us more resilient. This year we needed to draw on courage and resilience to get through. However, we got though together, he wake eke noa. I would like to show my gratitude and appreciation to the many people who help govern, lead, manage, organise and assist in enabling Karamu High School to be such a successful place to learn and work. The first group that I would like to thank are the Board of Trustees. We have been fortunate to have maintained stability in our governance over a number of years thanks largely to our Board Chairman, Mr Dave de Lange. His huge experience, and calm considered manner make him a real asset to this school and community. We cannot thank him enough for the commitment he has made, and continues to make, to our school. The rest of the board have continued to support, guide and direct the strategic vision of the school into the future. The second group that I would like to thank are our staff. We are exceptionally fortunate to be able to entice and retain fantastic staff here at Karamu and 2020 has been no different with a commitment by the staff to ensure our students receive a quality education with numerous opportunities to grow and develop. The commitment from the staff during the 8-week lockdown was testament to their dedication and loyalty to our students. There were several staffing highlights but to demonstrate our breadth of talent, just two from completely different spheres were Ms Maiken Calkeon being awarded the Fullbright Distinguished Teachers Scholarship and Mr Elijah Martin being contracted to the HB Magpies. Alongside our teachers are our extraordinary support staff who also work tirelessly to ensure that the school runs smoothly. The third group that I would like to thank are our school whanau. We are grateful for the support our school receives from whanau and the community. The role you play in the education of our rangitahi is critical to their success. Whether as a coach, manager,
administrator, standing on the side lines or as an audience at a performance, your support really makes a difference, and our students and I do appreciate it. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the engagement and participation of the student body. While all students contribute to the vision of Proudly Karamu, 2020 was not a normal year for a Year 13 student. But in particular our Year 13 students led by Tiana Edwards, Ondre Hapuku-Lambert, Sophie Jones and Andre Carter demonstrated the qualities of highly successful young people. They not only fulfilled our school vision and values but they took every opportunity to lead when no-one was watching, think win-win and synergize. An exciting new opportunity this year has been an increased engagement with more of our alumni or past pupils and, hopefully, you too will enjoy the mini-bio’s in this magazine (full articles were in the Karamu Korero). We look forward in 2021 to the formation of ‘Tira Ora’ (the branchlet of the Karamu tree), including a database of our leavers. We are well positioned with an amazing physical environment, fantastic personnel and solid financial resourcing to support successful change. If covid-19 has taught us anything, it is that change is the constant. How we adjust, be agile and manage or lead that change will determine our journey or destination. As we set about defining the next strategic planning cycle, we are excited to discover what staff, students and the board would like to see for the future. I look forward to steering the waka of ideas and concepts so we can continue to be proud of our achievements, our journey and our rangitahi. Nga mihi nui Dionne Thomas Principal
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT 4
