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The news that Ōrewa College principal Gregory Pierce had resigned, after just three years in the job, came as a bombshell to the college and its community.
He had accepted a job as Executive Principal at Brisbane State High School.
Reactions to the news, when it went on Hibiscus Matters website and Facebook pages last month, were mixed with many positive supportive comments about his time in the role and others, considerably less so.
Pierce took over from long-time principal Kate Shevland at the start of 2021 and a turbulent time lay ahead. The period included two years of Covid-19 disruptions, teacher strikes and significant floods, as well as a major curriculum “refresh” related to changes in NCEA standards.
Pierce says the school has not yet been able to move on from the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on student learning and social interaction.
“All my colleagues comment on dealing with higher levels of anxiety among students, and parents,” he says. “We will still see those consequences in the next year to 18 months.”
He says at a recent end of year school assembly he spoke about disruptions worldwide – including, for some nations, political unrest, and war.
“I said in light of all that, we need to take the undoubted difficulties we face on the chin and move forward.”
But he admits, this has been easier said, then done. “I believe we responded to the various events by supporting students, families and communities as best we could with the resources we had,” he says. “But now it’s time for a new normal, with no excuses and the need to take personal responsibility when you make a mistake.”
Although not a fan of some of the new government’s stated policies around education, he supports National’s promise to be ‘tough on crime’.
The college re-assessed its discipline processes in the middle of last year, and although Pierce says few actual changes were made to things like the criteria for standing down a student (enforced leave from school for a certain period), there was clarity given to the school community that discipline was a focus and things would be ‘firming up’.
“We also had to clarify rules to help us deal with more recent issues, such as vaping in the toilets and inappropriate use of digital devices,” he says.
How the school handled incidents of bullying angered some parents, who expressed concerns about this to the school and on social media.
“Our stance on how we handle bullying, when we are aware it is occurring, has been consistent,” Pierce says. “Sometimes we get the information retrospectively, but we follow up every incident of that behaviour that is brought to our attention or observed by staff in classrooms or around the school at break times.”
He says that the heightened level of anxiety in the community after Covid-19 came to the fore when disciplining students.
“When someone’s son or daughter was stood down, or disciplined, the automatic response of the parent/caregiver was to demand a close look at the circumstances, evidence and school processes, rather than start by acknowledging that the student had got something wrong,” he says. “Young people have been getting things wrong forever, but the levels of accountability have changed, in my view.”
He says at times, parents’ reactions were “disproportionate”.
“Things that would have been considered minor, pre-Covid, were elevated to crisis level, in some cases,” he says.
At the same time, Pierce acknowledges that the disruptions to education caused by the flooding, strikes and the pandemic also meant that if a student was stood down or suspended, it created another level of distress for those involved: more time off school, parents unsure what to do if their child had to be at home while they were working.
The school has nearly 2000 students. There were six suspensions last year and Pierce says that is considerably fewer than previous years; the number of detentions has also fallen. There were 27 stand-downs per term last year, which Pierce says is consistent with other years (average of 20-25 per term in the last four years).
He says the reduction in suspensions is, in part, due to the school’s Manaaki 4-Step programme which involves students ‘self-reflecting’ when they get things wrong.
Among the positives achieved during his tenure, Pierce points to keeping the school fully staffed throughout all the employment market ups and downs, and a growing focus on increasing ‘student agency, accountability and engagement’ with their learning. The school is working with Auckland University on staff professional development to assist with that.
He is proud of the school’s strengths in areas such as sport, music, the performing arts and the Duke of Edinburgh outdoor programme.
“Overall, I am pleased with the progress that the college has made in the challenging environment of the last few years, and it’s in a good position for the new principal to take forward,” he says.
At the age of 60, he says the job at Brisbane State High School was too good to miss.
“My wife and I had talked about finishing my career in an international environment and this was the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Pierce says he would have liked to give more notice, but it came down to the timing of when his new employer needed him to start work. He will have relocated to Brisbane by the middle of this month.
Associate Principal, Anna Kenny, will be Acting Principal for Term 1, 2024 while the Board of Trustees goes through the recruitment process.
