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Intermediate’s new principal graduates from primary

Flagstaff Team

Warm welcome… Wairau Intermediate’s new principal, Yolanda East (centre), flanked by two of the schools Board of Trustees members, chair Nicolette Hansen (left) and Michelle Webb-Atkinson.

Wairau Intermediate will start the 2021 school year with a new principal who comes armed with insights into the local community from her current role as deputy principal at nearby Sunnynook Primary School.

Yolanda East says she is looking forward to making the move after 11 years at Sunnynook, where she teaches senior classes.

She is keen to continue working with students and parents she knows already and to build relationships by working closely with Wairau’s other feeder schools.

“It’s an exciting opportunity at a good school with so much potential,” says East, who is keen to build the roll over time. “One of the benefits of being a small school is there is room for growth.”

She will officially take up the new job in late January, replacing long-serving principal Grant Murray, who is retiring. She is already easing into her new responsibilities, with budget briefings and attendance at a Board of Trustees meeting.

The chair of the trustees, Nicolette Hansen, said the board was thrilled to announce East would be joining Wairau. Her work representing Sunnynook on the local community of schools group, Pupuke Kahui Ako, which takes in early childhood to high school representatives, meant she was familiar with the wider educational picture and personalities.

“She’s got energy, vibrancy and passion,” said Hansen.

East was chosen from 24 applicants as someone who could build on the strengths of the school.

Her strengths in community engagement stood out, said Hansen. “It was a major selling point for her coming into the school, knowing that she knows the community.”

East credited Sunnynook’s principal, Virginia Montague, with encouraging her into the Pupuke Kahui Ako role, which was a step into the world of principalship.

It will be the English-born teacher’s first time working in an intermediate after moving to New Zealand in 2008 with her husband, Martin, and two now-adult children.

Roles she has held here include being a Year 5 & 6 team leader and as a special-needs co-ordinator.

Her first focus will be getting to know Wairau’s students, staff and the community before building a picture of development opportunities.

“It’s not about sudden change, it’s about valuing what works and building on that.”

East, who is in her 50s, believes opportunities exist to spread the word about what Wairau offers. This includes “re-marketing” it to families in the wider catchment looking to choose between sending their children to Wairau or to Murrays Bay Intermediate to the north or Takapuna Normal Intermediate School to the south.

The school has the capacity to take up to 400 pupils, with its roll currently sitting well under 300.

“We need to be the school of choice for our community,” she says.


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