From Mel Sutton’s office at Te One School on Wharekauri Chatham Island she can look out either to a large lake, or across the sand dunes which lead to the mighty South Pacific Ocean. The scenery is stunning and wild, says Mel, who has been principal at Te One for three and a half years.
Te One School is Mel’s first principalship and, as she puts it, was “just a little bit of a change” from her previous role teaching at Clyde Quay School in central Wellington. It was her son along with a good friend who had worked as a resource teacher learning and behaviour (RTLB) on Wharekauri who convinced her to take the job. Everyone else told her she was mad.
“I turned down a different principalship to come here. But my son was 100% right. It’s a challenge I needed.”
As she talks about her role, it becomes clear that being an educator on the Chatham Islands is very different to being an educator in other parts of Aotearoa New Zealand; there’s a special type of resilience required of people who have chosen to live and work in a close-knit community on a remote island.
Home to just over 600 people, Wharekauri is the larger of the two inhabited Chatham islands, some 862km and two hours by plane from Christchurch, with flights also leaving from Auckland and Wellington. The main township of Waitangi has two general stores. Islanders order groceries online that get shipped or flown in, but if the plane’s cancelled, you won’t get them. If your car breaks down, you need to wait for a part to be shipped or flown in.
“You learn to be patient and not to sweat the small stuff,” says Mel.
Te One School is the largest school in the Chatham Islands, with three teaching staff, and 55 students. Five minutes from the main township of Waitangi, Te One is a full primary with three classrooms. There is one other school on Wharekauri and one on Rangiauria Pitt Island. With no secondary schooling in the Chathams, students have to leave the islands to board at secondary school in New Zealand.
Amy Kamo has been a new entrant teacher at Te One for four and a half years. She loves her job and the life on Wharekauri. Amy’s husband is a Chatham Islander, which she says makes it easier for her to navigate the close community.
“The biggest challenge coming here is size of community and having awareness that everywhere you go, you’re a teacher, that’s your role. Most students are related, so there’s those close relationships you need to observe and understand.”
“Compared to the students I was teaching back in New Zealand, the kids here have great oral language because they’re always with adults. Their coordination and fine and gross motor skills are better too.”
Chatham Islanders live a great part of their lives outdoors for both work and enjoyment – fishing, diving, farming, hunting and spending time on the lake. Mel says this is in sharp contrast to the ākonga at her previous school, some of whom had never seen a worm before, and who lived in inner-city apartments without gardens.
Cell phone connection and reliable internet access only arrived four years ago. Amy says one of the first things she noticed about Wharekauri ākonga when she first arrived was their excellent oral language skills.
“Compared to the students I was teaching back in New Zealand, the kids here have great oral language because they’re always with adults. Their coordination and fine and gross motor skills are better too.”
While Amy thinks she’s seen a slight decline in these skills since the internet became more accessible, the outdoors remain crucial not only for coordination and physical development but for socialising and working out how they’re going to do things together.
There is one area at Te One that tamariki call ‘the wilderness’ – a section of trees and bush that open up in the centre where ākonga can climb and have imaginary play.
“The kids run a ‘cafe’ in the wilderness and visitors to school will often get offered a ‘pie’ and ‘whisky’ from the cafe,” says Mel.
As every principal and teacher knows, relationships with whānau are crucial, and these were some of Mel’s biggest hurdles when she arrived. She was Te One School’s seventh principal in ten years, so there were issues with continuity of activity and processes, and some valid scepticism that she would stick around.
“The turnover of staff here prior to me had been thick and fast. I could see what others before me had started or intended to do, but there was nothing embedded. I didn’t want to come unless I thought I could be here for a period of time and I had faith that I could do that.”
“On a photography fieldtrip one of the kids got hungry, so they just went down to the rocks, grabbed a paua and ate it raw.”
One of the first questions the students asked was, “how long are you going to stay for?”
Amy says Mel has worked hard on inspiring trust that she’ll stay, putting processes in place and bringing potential teachers over before they sign up so they can see what they’re coming to.
“I think in the past, a romantic view was presented to teachers. You need a lot of resilience to live and work here.”
“We don’t fit in the New Zealand box. Those 700 or so kilometres of water make our situation very different to the New Zealand situation. We need to be seen as different.”
Amy says it was important for her to back herself and be confident in her role. Part of her job was to get to know whānau and make sure they had an equal understanding of what learning looked like with a more modern view. She gives an example of an activity the ākonga did coming back into the new school term.
“Mice had gotten into the dress up box – so we did the laundry this week – which is an opportunity to integrate learning around measurements, technology, problem solving, self-management and responsibility.”
Mel’s team has brought back the school camp for senior students, currently held at Taiko Camp. Students work with some of the Department of Conservation teams looking after native fledglings and burrows, and also go eeling, learn river crossing, first aid and survival skills, and making bivvies to sleep in outside.
“Our camp definitely looks different to what a lot of New Zealand school camps look like.”
The special terms for Chatham and Pitt Islands in the primary principals’ collective agreement have not been updated in 21 years and Mel says they are no longer fit for purpose. The teacher’s collective is equally overdue for an update. The isolation allowance is less than what educators in Aotearoa New Zealand get, despite the costs associated with living on the island being 40% higher, and the high cost of travelling back to the mainland. Staff retention, which has an impact on student learning, is one of Mel’s biggest headaches.
“I’ve seen the gaps in our students’ learning because of that high turnover; recruitment and retention of our teaching staff needs to be a priority. Without this, our tamariki continue to miss out and fall behind.”
She says changes to the collective agreement and allowances that reflect the specific and true costs of living in the Chathams would help.
“We don’t fit in the New Zealand box. Those 700 or so kilometres of water make our situation very different to the New Zealand situation. We need to be seen as different.”
While that isolation and difference can be hard, it also makes for some tamariki with great DIY ingenuity.
“We had one of those manual winding pencil sharpeners and it broke,” says Amy. “One of my five years olds said, give it to me. It took him 15 minutes to take the thing apart and put it back together, all fixed!”
Amy and Mel share other things they learn from their students, things you don’t generally learn in Aotearoa New Zealand.
“On a photography fieldtrip one of the kids got hungry, so they just went down to the rocks, grabbed a paua and ate it raw,” says Mel.
Amy knew nothing about motorbikes and was amazed at the extent of knowledge the children had.
“It’s pretty incredible when a five-year-old can tell you about motorbikes, explaining how many ccs their motorbike has in comparison to their older sibling’s bike.”
Despite the many challenges of living on Wharekauri, there are innumerable benefits too. Achieving a work-life balance is easier here, without the hustle and bustle of traffic and activities to rush to.
“I’m able to create space for my mental health, walking along the beach with no one else around,” says Amy.
Mel says the way the community gathers to help everyone in times of need, for fun events and to support activities for the children of the island is special.
“There are very few places where a whole town shuts down for a tangi. It shows the true culture of Chatham Islanders.”
