Celebrating after Maniototo Area School won the secondary school student engagement and attendance award at the New Zealand Education Excellence Awards are (from left) school board of trustees presiding member Sarah Paterson, deputy principals Nikki Meyer and Lucia Dowling, and principal Melissa Bell. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Winning a national excellence award was the perfect end to Maniototo Area School principal Melissa Bell’s time at the school. The school won the secondary school attendance and engagement award at the inaugural New Zealand Education Excellence Awards held at Parliament on Wednesday. Up against Nelson College for Girls, which has more than 900 students including international and boarding students, the Ranfurly school, with about 145 students from years 1-13, was dwarfed only by roll numbers in the final. The finalists were selected from a short-list of 10 schools around the country, which had been nominated by their community. Principal Melissa Bell became emotional as she accepted the award. Winning the national award was due to the work of everyone engaged with the school and the students, Ms Bell said. “This is a big deal for us. We are a rural, isolated school and I think for our work to be seen and celebrated means so much.” Every teacher, parent, board member, support staff worker, parent who got their child to school, and student had helped win the award, she said. “Today for us proves that when we dream big and we are relentless in wanting better outcomes for our students, and we value every student no matter their postcode, we can do amazing things.” Yesterday Ms Bell said she surprised herself by being emotional as the award was presented. The $20,000 prize would be used for “something really meaningful” for staff and students, she said. “We feel like the work that we’ve done, we’ve just started it, and we’ve got more to do, so we’d quite like the funds to kind of keep that project going around, you know, raising achievement, high expectations, high engagement.” However, the final decision would be made by the next principal. The award came during Ms Bell’s last weeks as principal at the school. After three and a-half years at the Ranfurly school she was leaving at the end of term and beginning with the Ministry of Education as a principal leadership adviser in Otago and Southland in term 3. She would continue to live in Ranfurly and work from there, she said. Andrew Hunter, formerly of Balmacewen Intermediate School in Dunedin, would be acting principal for the rest of the year while the school searched for a permanent principal, Ms Bell said. julie.asher@odt.co.nz
