Henry Hill School:
Working to grow things well
By Heather Barker Vermeer Industry Reporter
Henry Hill School is this year’s winner of the Prime Minister’s Excellence in Education Wellbeing Award. Principal Jase Williams spoke to Heather Barker Vermeer about the Hawkes Bay school’s journey and what success looks like to its people… For nine years, Jase Williams has been at the helm of Henry Hill School in Napier. A teacher
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since 2002, Williams taught at nearby Flaxmere School, Hastings Intermediate, Napier Intermediate and Camberley Schools, before being drawn to Henry Hill School, with buckets full of positive intent. Williams says he was attracted to the position at Henry Hill School due to it being a low decile school with a large proportion of Māori and Pasifika students. He said: “I look like the kids and community here and I also live in this community. I know that being who I am makes a huge difference to the kids and community. Here, I am able to be myself and I ‘get it’
and they ‘get me’.” His approach to leadership is intrinsically linked with wellbeing, and this has been his driving force. “Being connected both physically and socially and emotionally with our school’s students, and community, has meant we are well aware that there is a whole lot of intergenerational trauma and hurt out there and also lots of overwhelmed parents.” The ways in which Williams and his team have worked to help their community heal goes way beyond what would traditionally be expected from a school setting.
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“When we lifted up the data for our kids who weren’t achieving academically and also for those transient kids who come to us, the picture was really depressing—poor attendance, poor punctuality, poor health, poor behaviour, and disengaged whānau, and the underlying factor was trauma. So, we made the conscious decision to learn more about trauma and the effects and impacts it has on child and brain development, but we learned so much more. “Such as, we largely parent how we were parented. Taking the good memories from our own childhood, we pass similar
Term 1, 2022 | schoolnews.co.nz
