Local Folk – Marilyn Newlove

The end of 2017 marked the end of an era in Warkworth, when Mahurangi College teacher, careers advisor and Year 13 Dean, Marilyn Newlove, retired after 47 years, 40 of which were at “Mahu”. During that time, she has guided thousands of students through the academic and social challenges of senior school. She told Sally Marden that while the college is unrecognisable from when she started teaching there, the students really haven’t changed at all …

Retirement is going to be a big change. I will miss the companionship of both the students and staff at the college; I’ve had very good friends there. I don’t think it’s really going to hit me until next week, when they go back … it will be huge for me not to have to get up and go back to school. The school had about 650 students with 30 staff when I started there in 1978. There are now over 1300 with more than 100 staff. But I still find students are wonderful, they have got that lovely nature; there’s still good in everyone. They might have different names now, but I still enjoy following the progress of all the senior students and a lot of them stay in touch. Because of its rural nature, Mahurangi has always had that special ethos about it; our students do extremely well in all three fields – academic, sporting and cultural. One of the great things is our whanau system, which creates a special bond between students. It never fails to amaze me what our students achieve.

I was born in Wellington, but my parents gradually moved up the country and finishing up in Whangarei. I went to school for the first four years in Palmerston North, then Auckland and finally Whangarei Girls. I always thought I wanted to be a primary school teacher. That came from many years ago from when my parents had a primary school teacher for a boarder, which gave me an interest in that direction. But when I went for my interview, they said they thought that I should be a maths and science teacher for secondary schools, because I had high grades in those subjects, and that was what I loved. So I did a speciality maths and science course and trained for two years, then went off to do my first probationary year in a school that doesn’t exist any more – Waipu District High School, which became Bream Bay College. I then taught at Te Awamutu College, in the Waikato, where I met my husband, Tom. He was doing shearing contracting at the time. We had our family there and then he joined the NZ Police force. I think he’d always wanted to be a policeman, but he’s done lots of things over his working life. He was also a bootmaker at one stage and once won a top prize for shoe design.

We had two children while at Te Awamutu – Nicoli, who’s now 47, and Dean, 45. Nicoli lives in Waipu Cove while Dean has lived in Australia for 25 years and I have five grandchildren over there. I’ve flown to Sydney to see them every single school holidays since my eldest grandson was born, and he’s 22 now. We were in Te Awamutu for 10 years. During that time I took a break from teaching when I had the children, but went back fulltime, then a one-year relief job came up at Mahurangi College. At the end of that year, the principal Alon Shaw employed me in a permanent position and that’s where I stayed for the next 40 years. I originally taught maths and science, then moved to just maths, but after a few years the opportunity arose to become one of the careers advisors. In time, my role changed again and I became in charge of the Year 13s and was head of the Learning Faculty, where I took on several roles – Academic Dean for Year 13, coordinator of the Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource and Te Kura Correspondence School supervisor. I also started the Gateway apprenticeship-training programme. There are a lot more opportunities for students now and more kids are staying at school for longer. A lot of students who are planning on an apprenticeship will come back to Year 13 and join apprenticeships later.

Twenty-five years ago, I started looking after the school ball. In those days, it would be held at the college and we’d decorate the hall ourselves, and we’d have to give up a week of the school holidays to make it all happen. It was all different themes – we had a casino one year, also fairy tales where everyone created huge murals and made a papier mache Jack and the Beanstalk. When the theme was The Lost Forest, we had a real waterfall running down the wall. The worst thing was the cleaning up afterwards and getting students to come in the next day to help. It was mammoth! The ball gradually became bigger and bigger, and everyone wanted to do something different. About 10 to 15 years ago, we decided we needed a proper meal instead of just a supper. The college roll was growing so much, the hall wasn’t really big enough any more. The last year it was at the school we had a marquee and people catered, but we knew we needed a new venue. First we went to Matakana Country Park, in the art gallery and café area, and had to clean up the same night, a job left to just parents, myself and a few staff; the kids had all gone to an after-ball party. Then we were at Ascension for a few years, which was a lovely venue. We still had a theme and some decorations, but not to the extent we did at school.

Then it got too big for Ascension. I never had the vision of us going to the city as I didn’t think it was good for the students to be bussed down there. But, having said that, it has worked out wonderfully. First it was North Harbour Stadium and then right into the city at a hotel. That’s still going now, and it’s lovely for our students go into this lovely venue where, for a lot of them, they’ve never been anywhere like that. Everyone has to go by bus and it’s all organised by the students.

In 2013, while driving to Whangarei, I was involved in a car accident. It was drizzling and a woman pulled out of a side lane in front of me. At first they thought I’d burst my spleen and gave me a trauma CT scan. However, after a follow up scan, I was told I had cancer in my bowel, liver and lungs. This resulted in two years of operations, which included removing part of my bowel and a lot of my liver, and lengthy sessions of chemotherapy. What got me through it was that I had such wonderful support from my family, friends, and from the school staff and students. They just treated me normally and David Macleod just said, “Come in when you can”. If I hadn’t had that car accident, I would be dead; my life would have been very short. Every time I go past the site of the accident, I thank the lady who pulled out in front of me.

I carried on working because I loved what I was doing and my health didn’t make too much difference. Plus, I didn’t want my health to dictate my retirement date. I decided it would be 40 years, and I completed 40 years. I had a lovely send off from staff and students, all three principals I’d worked for were there – Alon Shaw, Rex Grey and David Macleod – and I’d like to thank them all because they were wonderful bosses.

I will miss it, but intend to keep in touch with the school and I would like to get into some voluntary work. People always ask ‘what big trips are you going to go on?’ but we don’t have any major holidays planned. We did a cruise last year and we might go on another. We have a bach at Paihia and we love going up there. I love my large bush garden and I love my craft – patchwork, knitting and sewing. I also enjoy my biking, frequently biking the rail trail up at Paihia, so there are lots of things, and I’ll still go to Australia every school holiday. Tom and I plan to live life to the fullest and take every opportunity that comes our way.