College finalist in Prime Minister's excellence awards

IMPORTANT VISIT: Fa'amatuainu Tino Pereira, judge for the Prime Minister's Education Excellence Awards, with William Colenso College students Hikawera Karauria and Malachi Finai during a tour.

William Colenso College was being closely scrutinised last week - for all the right reasons.
The Onekawa-based high school is a finalist in three of the four categories for the 2017 Prime Minister's Education Excellence Awards.

Judges toured the facility on Thursday to see for themselves how innovative and effective the teaching practice is at William Colenso.

"We are hugely honoured by this," says principal Daniel Murfitt of the school vying for the top category prize of $20,000 in each of Excellence in Learning, Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and Excellence in Governing.

The winner of the Prime Minister's Supreme Award will receive a package that includes the Supreme Award trophy, a certificate, and an additional financial award of $30,000.

"Being finalists is quite significant to us," Daniel says. "We're the only education organisation in the country to be in three of the four categories.

"We are sort of surprised and not surprised - I know we're doing really good stuff here."
This is the fourth year for the Excellence Awards - a Government incentive to profile New Zealand's education system both internally and globally - but the first time William Colenso has puts its hand up.

"We were told we should apply a couple years ago but we were just too busy doing what we're doing," says Daniel. "But someone told us that again last year, so we decided to apply for the three areas."

The application process is time-consuming, but the booklets William Colenso put together are impressive. The awards panel thought so as well, choosing the school out of a collection of 141 applicants to be one of the 14 finalists.

"It's really about building a narrative that the judges can read and go, 'OK, I see the story about what's happening'," says Daniel. "The benefit of applying was that it was a really good opportunity to self-review what we're doing - how we got to this point and how we can continue to build."

The Excellence Awards also serve to shine the spotlight on schools that are not otherwise recognised for their excellence in educating the young people who pass through their doors.

"There are so many good things happening in New Zealand education, even in Hawke's Bay," says Daniel.

"And, often, it's not well-spread, due to the competitive nature of schooling. This award is one way of trying to spread the word about the really good things that are happening in New Zealand schools."

William Colenso is not one of Napier's bigger schools and is often overshadowed by others with larger student numbers.

"I don't think we get the local praise or recognition that the school, the teachers and the community deserve," says Daniel. "There are lot of good things happening here and, when you put them all together, it becomes something quite significant.

"What we'd like to see from the awards process is that people locally start going 'what is it that we have in our neighbourhood?'. A lot of people are going to be surprised, and that's a good feeling."

A film crew will spend three days at the school, as each finalist will be profiled online, allowing their success to go viral. The national recognition has already had a positive ripple effect among the school's population.

"It's an opportunity for us to build pride in the students as well, because it's really important for them to feel pride in the school," Daniel says.

"If you feel pride in something you belong to, you end up performing better."
Info: pmawards.education.govt.nz