My Account
When Stanmore Bay School principal Carol Abley resigned at the end of March, the shock was felt by the whole school community. When she goes, at the end of next term, there is no doubt she will enjoy spending more time with her children and grandchildren. However, she says the parting will be a wrench as she is leaving her other family – the staff and children of the school who have been part of her life for 30 years. She spoke with Terry Moore.
The job is getting very difficult and stressful as schools struggle to support children with complex special needs, as well as deal with Ministry compliance requirements. When I started teaching, in the late 1960s in the UK, I had 42 five year olds in my class. In those days teachers were respected as professionals and parents respected the fact that the teacher knew what to do and didn’t query anyone. It made things easier. There were no nut allergies, or children with a lot of special needs – perhaps in those days the diagnosis was not so advanced, but I knew the symptoms of those things and there were none in my classes in those early days. The children had school dinners cooked by dinner ladies which cost a shilling a day and mums stayed at home and cooked meals – we didn’t eat nearly as much fast food. Now it’s much harder for parents. Many drop their kids at the school at 7am and pick them up at 6pm and they need two incomes to pay the bills and food that’s quick to prepare.
My older sister went into teaching and I followed in her footsteps – it was that, or work in a bank. I lived in a small town called Morecambe and went to Cheshire County teachers’ training college in Crewe, where I boarded for three years. It was a lot more formal and regimented in those days.You used to have designated “polite conversation” sessions with lecturers, and if you wanted visitors at the hostel you had to have a letter from your mother to get permission. You grew up a lot, living away from home with your peers. I taught at Morecambe for around two years and then my husband David and I came to live in New Zealand. David had family here. We arrived by boat, on the Northern Star after six heavenly weeks at sea, visiting the Canary Isles, Dubai, Capetown, Freemantle and Sydney. We landed in Wellington and I remember they took all my shoes and disinfected them because there was a foot and mouth outbreak.
We moved to Palmerston North where initially we got lost a lot because the streets all looked the same. It was the days of the six o’clock swill, which was so different from the pubs in England, where women were accepted. My two kids, Geoff and Helen, were born in Palmerston North. You could only buy a car if you had overseas currency, which we did, so we bought a Mini and later a caravan. We bought the caravan after testing first to see if the Mini could manage to pull it up a hill. I taught in a number of schools, Year 1-6. Reading was always something I enjoyed teaching because I could see what a difference it made if children could read well. My husband worked for the Post Office and he was promoted to Hamilton, so we moved to Cambridge where I was a fulltime mum. Then we moved to Glenfield, so David could take up a job in Auckland. I taught in a kindergarten in Glenfield and then at Birkdale North Primary under the amazing principal Bill Barris. I remember when I told him that my husband had got a contract to work in Samoa, he said he would come and cut my grass. It was hard at times bringing up two children and working full time, with no relations to rely on locally. Later I taught at Huapai School, where I was Associate Principal. In those days the Ministry inspectorate graded you every three years and when you wanted to move to another school they chose for you, depending on your grade. The children at Huapai were lovely and would hold the door open for you. I was a bit of an outsider, as I came from the North Shore and wasn’t a Westie, so it took a while to be accepted.
After that – 30 years ago now – I became Associate Principal at Stanmore Bay School. At the time we were living in Birkenhead, and the commute took around 35 minutes, against the traffic. When the children left home we moved to Army Bay, which was quite rural then – we could see cows grazing from our window. I was the only female in the management team and Bryan Meek from Warkworth was the principal. The children were skinny and ran around a lot outside, many walked to school. We were a full primary, with a roll of around 800 so, after they built Whangaparaoa Intermediate, we decapitated. That was in the days of Tomorrow’s Schools, which brought in a board of trustees instead of the inspectorate. When the board, under chair Roc Widdison, appointed me Principal 10 years ago, I inherited a deficit of around $80,000. I got a support person to help with the finances and help turn things around. To keep costs down, I had to say to teachers “if you want it, you can’t have it but if you need it to do your job, we will get it for you.” There were a few redundancies, as some of the office staff were on high pay and we couldn’t afford it. Most of the new staff we brought in have been with me for 10 years. It took two years to get into the black – helped along by grants from Pub Charities and Lion Foundation. The grants got us a new piano, play equipment and library resources. I only had to show them our financial position and they were keen to help. That money continues to be valuable – recently it allowed us to get solar panels and IT equipment. About 30 percent of parents pay the school donation, and that’s been fairly consistent over the years.
I instigated the building of four new playgrounds – there was no play equipment at all 10 years ago. We now have a music teacher four days a week, a music room and a band. Water safety is so important, so we started bringing in Leisure Centre swim coaching so most of our children can swim. We also got a dingy, which we put in the pool for water safety lessons. Next term all classes will have air conditioning units, which should make a difference for the children and teachers. Recently we brought in a counsellor – children have more complex problems and he has a waiting list. The high needs children are a small percentage but nevertheless take hours away from teaching the other children. We have children who are “runners” (some wear GPS trackers in case they get away from us) as well as many others with special needs and things such as anxiety, which is a concern so young. They come to school with a lot of baggage that we have to unpack before we can teach them. Teachers are finding it stressful and we don’t get the funding for the support we need. We had a union meeting the other day and the main concern was stress. This is something often raised at the Hibiscus Coast Principals association meetings too.
I have the most amazing, loyal and hard working staff – we are a family, we support each other through both personal and work problems and that’s one of the main things about this school that I will truly miss. It’s a great little school but you get to the stage where the problems are bigger than the pluses and when that happens, it’s time to go. Problems I would have diffused with little difficulty at one time are becoming more difficult. I leave knowing that the school is well resourced, and with its buildings in good condition and, all in all, in good heart for the future.
