Cool schools at rotokauri

ROTOKAURI SCHOOL 462 Rotokauri Road RD9 HAMILTON 3289 Telephone (07) 849 5068 Fax (07) 849 4371 Email: office@rotokauri.school.nz 20 February 2014 To whom it may concern The entire staff from Rotokauri School completed an in service day with Christina Barruel during our recent summer break. In my 30 years of attending educational courses I have rarely come across a course which is so useful.

Our school Mission talks about creating a positive environment and Cool Schools fits perfectly into our beliefs of what a positive environment should look like for our students.

As we went through the sequence of lessons I could see our staff’s eyes light up as they could see the significance of getting our students involved in this amazing programme. I can see that this will really empower students to make changes in their thinking and subsequent actions.

We are now in the process of selecting mediators to work with Christina over the coming weeks. Our students are champing at the bit to be involved in this knowing that they will benefit throughout their lives with new array of mediation skills. I can see the concept of students dealing with students has huge potential. It’s teaching our students about fairness and empathy. It’s giving our student’s a structured transparent way of discussing issues that they hold dear.

The thing that stands out for me with this programme was the quality of the training.

Christina is just full of energy and passion for her job. She made a believer of us all that this was a real investment in our kids’ future. The whole programme is just so functional and simple to adopt. All the wrinkles that prevent us from implementing other such programmes have been ironed out – it is user friendly.

I would suggest to any board or principal that this is money well spent not only for your school but for society in general.

Mark Goodson Principal