Hillmorton is a diverse, medium-sized Years 7-13 school with a dedicated Middle and Senior School. The size and scope of the school means they are able to provide students with a caring and supportive environment, where they are known as an individual from Year 7 through to Year 13.
Ann Brokenshire (principal) and Duane Major (Board Chair) showed the group around the new building - Aonga Ake. This building is located at the front of the school site nearer the road to give the school a greater more welcoming presence particularly for new students and parents who are a welcome part of the school community.
Ann described how the building was designed to bring the middle school, years 7 - 10, together and give them a sense of belonging and inclusion. The design and architecture aims to reflect all the different cultures represented in the school and students had input into the design and features. The spaces are designed to be flexible with single cell classrooms that can open up into the bigger spaces to be used as teachers/ classes wish.
Part of the new building brings Ko Taku Reo (Van Asch school) into the main school and these students have classrooms within Aonga Ako which again helps with their sense of belonging to Hillmorton.
The masterplan for Hillmorton is for 2000 students with a current roll of just over 1000. The school has seen a period of growth with the current year 9 being the largest the school has seen at 237 students. It is expected that this growth will continue and roll up.
Hillmorton has a great board who are all heavily invested in the school, most of their own children attend.
Ann shared several stories of students' successes and acknowledged that the school would like to do more of this within the wider community. Many parents share that their children's school experience at Hillmorton prepares them for the real world because it is enriched by the diversity within the school
We discussed the free school lunches trial which Hillmorton is a part of. The team at UCSA have been doing regular student and parent surveys to improve the service and food provided and the school is seeing an increase in uptake by students. Students eat in their Whanau groups which is working well as eating and relating go hand in hand and helps to build relationships and that sense of belonging. All packaging is recyclable and any lunches not eaten are passed onto other organisations or back to the University who use them in their food bank for students who may be struggling. This means that even if not eaten at school, the lunches are not going to waste. Long term the school would love to have a full cafeteria providing choice and hot food but this is a long way off.
Keri asked how the no cell phones policy was going. The overwhelming results are successful. As well as students being more engaged in other activities, staff have seen a huge drop in the number of phones being confiscated each day - 10 per day being the max currently. In a school of over 1000 this is a great result. Instead students are spending time in the library or engaged in sports, card games and talking to each other.
One spin off of the policy was the need to put clocks in each classroom so students could keep track of time - and therefore the need to teach lots of students how to read an analogue clock.
Sally asked how the school deals with the sometimes negative perception the public may have. Ann said it was simple really - by focussing on the positive and championing the students they have. The school is very family oriented and works closely with individuals to solve problems. They have a great pastoral wrap around culture which means they have one of the lowest stand down rates in Christchurch.
During questions, Ann outlined how the biggest challenge Hillmorton faces is how to develop a culture that retains the pastoral wrap around that is key to Hillmortons success. This involves setting structures at deputy and associate principal level, year levels,pastoral leadership and increasing teams within the staffing so that decisions are made as close to the point of impact as possible. The board currently funds some staff to enable the class sizes to be kept smaller
Setting the culture - high expectations - then allows the strategy to be put in place to develop that culture.
Duane suggested the tension between size and growth could be managed by growing slowly and growing well. Planning and culture are key to this with the school being whanau orientated and committed to their visions of working with their communities, nurture well-rounded and accomplished young people, prepared and ready for life
Finally Duane described the urgent need for the new gym.The 6 tennis courts that gave way for Aonga Ake have been replaced but the gym is needed urgently. The school is hoping for a decision on this from the Ministry of Education in the next few weeks.
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