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Snells Beach School principal Jill Corkin is retiring at the end of the year.
In her 30-year career in education, Snells Beach School founding principal Jill Corkin has been at the helm of three schools and been involved with some of the biggest changes in education in the country.
Now she is changing paths to have more time to learn a new skill – how to be a grandmother.
Mrs Corkin describes the process of establishing Snells Beach School in 2009 as equally daunting, exciting and satisfying.
She was instrumental in shaping the school, working for over a year before it opened.
“It was an incredible task,” Mrs Corkin says. “We made decisions on everything from the design of the school and curriculum right through to what plants were in the garden, what books were in the library and even the type of toilet paper and dispensers.”
The unique timber-clad buildings of the school came after much consideration.
“We wanted it to feel like a little village using materials that blend with the environment, rather than have a big block of classrooms. The first day we opened was an amazing feeling. We could look around and say ‘everything here was the result of a decision we made’. It’s been a special opportunity for me. Leaving has been one of the hardest decisions of my career.”
The school’s roll has nearly doubled since it opened, from 123 students to 232, and two new classrooms opened last year.
The school also appears to be popular with the teachers – all but one of the establishment staff stayed for the first five years and most still remain.
Previously, Mrs Corkin was principal at Pakuranga Heights Primary School and Victoria Avenue School in Remuera.
She has also been involved in some of the pivotal changes in education in New Zealand. She was lecturing at Wellington School of Education in 1989 when the Lange government announced the Tomorrows Schools reforms, which shifted management of schools from the Ministry of Education to locally elected boards of trustees.
“It was shock-horror material. The Ministry staff we dealt with went from 200 to 12 and I was expected to train boards on what their role would be under the new policy and I was running seminars around the country.”
Later, she helped establish principal training courses at Massey University in Palmerston North and in Albany.
More recently, she was president of the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association in 2013/2014, representing 480 primary principals in the region.
During her term, the now notorious Novopay payment system was launched and Mrs Corkin found herself thrust into the limelight, being interviewed for national news programmes. This year she has also been working on the government taskforce looking at updating the Education Act.
But Mrs Corkin is changing careers and will help her husband Alan run the Mike Pero franchise in Mangawhai, where they have been living for the past year.
“You become very time poor as a principal. I’ve got five children and became a grandparent this year. It’s time to change focus.”
Assistant principal Cherylene Neels will stand in for term one next year, when a new principal will be confirmed.
