Sam Wilson (Ngāi Tahu) – Year 5 & 6 teacher
I’ve been a teacher for over ten years, and this is my third year at Mt Cook School.
I’ve worked lots of places: a Catholic school, intermediate, primaries, China. I’ve been around all different deciles – not that we have deciles anymore – and I’ve taught overseas, and the kids are the same. It’s more the parents that are different. At every school I’ve been in, the kids are roughly the same. They all want to do well. They all want to please the teacher most of the time. There are only slight differences. I run my class exactly the same, to be honest.
At Mt Cook, I’ve noticed we’re relatively transient here. We get people come and go quite a lot really; we have families in social housing and then they might move somewhere else, we get refugees, new arrivals to Wellington, to New Zealand. They stay here a while and then they might buy a house in the Hutt. We had quite a few families leave last year because they bought further out. We do get some [families] that come right through, but we do get quite a lot who come and go.
What advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession?
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t get grumpy at kids – it doesn’t work. I came from working as a cop before being a primary school teacher, and I turned up and had my kids lining up in lines and marching around – I still have them marching; they love it, every school I’ve been at!
Kids are kids: they have good days and bad days, there’s no point getting grumpy at them
But yeah, kids are kids: they have good days and bad days, there’s no point getting grumpy at them. Starting off as a young guy, I was in there like, ‘Why are you talking while I’m talking!?’ Now it’s like, pick your battles, chill a bit. Getting grumpy doesn’t really get you anywhere.
Asuka Milne – teacher aide
This is my third year here and I’ve worked as a teacher aide for almost ten years. I’m in a Year 5 and 6 class, but also I’m attached to one of the very high-needs, non-verbal children.
The management at this school is very friendly – staff are so included. There are not many secrets here, it’s like a big whānau. We can be honest. I’m really enjoying working here. If someone needs help, everyone jumps in.
Constantly, [associate principals] Kate, Marije and [tumuaki] Adrianne come and say, ‘You’re doing an amazing job.’ They say it all the time! I’d never heard those kinds of words before. They constantly praise us and make sure we are okay. They say, ‘If you need 15-minute break, make sure you tell us, and go and have a cup of tea.’ So even if my body is tired and my head is not quite clear, it makes it fun to come to work.
[The management] constantly praise us and make sure we are okay … So even if my body is tired and my head is not quite clear, it makes it fun to come to work.
I haven’t noticed many changes in the students in the time I’ve been here really because [despite the recent cost-of-living crisis] the school doesn’t pass on economic impacts to the school, we don’t ask for donations, swimming and trips are free. We get free fruit donated by Countdown, KidsCan provide some jackets for kids. But after Covid when the borders opened, when I first started here, we had many new immigrants. That’s the main difference [in the past three years] I think.
What advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession?
English isn’t my first language, and I was really worried about that when I was starting out as a teacher aide ten years ago. I was worried about a lot of things, going into education. So I’d tell myself, ‘Don’t worry about it, you’ll learn with the kids. You’ll be okay. And you’ll have lots of fun in schools.’
Adrianne McAllister (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki) – tumuaki / principal
This is my third year at Mt Cook School, and my first permanent principal job. Before this, I was at a school in Whakatāne for 24 years, starting as a beginning teacher and finished as acting principal for the last two years. I’m loyal to the core! I came [to Wellington] for my moko and took an acting principal role here, before taking it on permanently.
The other school was bilingual – 87% Māori – and this is the polar opposite almost, incredibly multicultural. At the core, though, they are very similar, where relationships travel through everything; the kids are central to everything; the team really works well together and there’s no overbearing hierarchy. The fundamental things are very similar.
To be in education, you have to understand that it’s all about people. It’s about kids and their families, not just about the child that’s at the desk – it’s all that whakapapa behind them, their families, the things they believe, their values. Everything stems from that. When you are valued, you always do your best because you’re part of a community then. That’s why it’s always important for us to work together, that the staff here are happy, they feel safe and supported. This is their place too.
I’ve only known principalship in Covid years. Working class poverty is impacting us, in these past few years. Now, coming into New Zealand, we’re getting more migrants with neurodiversity, which is really interesting, whereas years ago we’d never have that. [We think this] is really cool, because it makes our school richer.
What advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession?
Do it, and do it quickly. Become a leader of a school.
I don’t know if it was ever verbally said, but I always had this impression that I couldn’t do it, as a Māori woman. I couldn’t get into teaching, and I could never, ever be a principal. I wasted a lot of time in that negativity. I always had a really big work ethic and dedicated my life to this, to the extent that my kids would say, ‘Why are you always at school?’ – but I wish I didn’t waste that much time doubting myself.
I always had this impression that I couldn’t do it, as a Māori woman. I couldn’t get into teaching, and I could never, ever be a principal. I wasted a lot of time in that negativity.
I was this stereotypical person who would never amount to anything: naughty at school, expelled from school, left at 15, pregnant at 18, bad at spelling… but you don’t need to be super clever to do this job. You just need to able to think quick and think outside the square. And have people and relationships at the heart. You don’t have to be a genius; you just have to care.
If I could live my life again, I would just be a lot more confident about this. And I always try, when I see young Māori teachers, to tell them, ‘You can do anything you want’. Māori kids: ‘You can be anything you want. I want you to come back and take my place when I’m old.’
Briar Hohua (Ngāi Tūhoe, Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa) – kaiwhakahaere ā tari / office manager
I’ve been here 26 years. I was here when we had the 125th anniversary, and next year we’re having the 150th.
I started helping out in the library, and then they needed help in the office and I’ve stayed there. It’s the only school I’ve worked in. I’ve worked with four principals. I’m seeing the children of children now – my daughter was here with all her friends, and now their kids are coming through.
There are a lot more kids now than there were 26 years ago – the roll is bigger. Technology has way changed. When I started, we had the big modems, little screens, little Commodore computers, faxes. We had the Gestetner for making copies.
When I started, it was mostly Māori, Pacific Island and Pākehā, not as hugely diverse as it is now. And the families were bigger back then, and it was just Dad working. There was still a lot of social housing in the area, we had lots of Black Power kids too – they used to do fundraising for us actually, it was great, they did a hāngi once.
What advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession?
Probably that I can do it. Back then I was nervous. I didn’t think I’d be able to work in an office, do finance stuff. I was a bit iffy on technology back then. Now I’d say, just go with the flow.
Myah Miranda – Year 1 & 2 teacher
This is my second year of teaching, and my second year at this school. I trained at Massey – in fact, my first placement was here.
One of my lecturers once said, ‘You won’t ever have all the answers at one point’, and that plays in my head quite a lot. In a classroom, so many things happen in a day, and I have to sometimes stop and remember: one thing at a time. Especially with the juniors, so many things are happening in that room. So from my training, while the practical stuff was helpful – how to teach reading and writing – it’s more [the advice like] ‘teachers don’t know everything’ that is useful day to day, because as a beginning teacher you’re still learning as well.
As a kid, I thought my teachers knew absolutely everything, but then I came in as a beginning teacher, and you find that there’s only so much that the university can teach you until you’re in it, doing it yourself. And as daunting as that seems, things do pan out okay if you don’t feel like you have all the answers to stuff. We can’t fix everything at once, and it’s okay for a few things to slip.
I came in as a beginning teacher, and you find that there’s only so much that the university can teach you until you’re in it, doing it yourself.
My expectations for what teaching was changed hugely in my first term of teaching. I had this real ideal, picture-perfect vision of what it would be like, the most aesthetic classroom, and I quickly realised it’s not all like that.
But there are some things that I love that I didn’t realise I would love, the more raw moments, like when one plan doesn’t work and you have to think on your feet and do something else, and then that becomes even cooler than you had planned.
What advice would you give your past self starting out in the profession?
Don’t doubt yourself. Back yourself. It’s okay to not be perfect. Teachers are human too. The kids will love you no matter what. I wish someone had told me that!
You go through those stressful assignments, and I remember the nights before placement not sleeping – ‘Are these kids going to like me? Am I going to have my lesson plan down to the minute?’ – that’s not actually teaching. The kids just want you to be you.
