Whanganui school consults community on 'ideal' student

Whanganui High School principal Martin McAllen.
PHOTO: Bevan Conley

What skills and attributes do you think the ideal Whanganui High School graduate should have?

That's the question the school's board of trustees and senior management put to a group of local business owners at a forum at the school last Wednesday evening.

Representatives from 23 Whanganui businesses and organisations attended the meeting - everything from charitable organisations to local councils to law firms, trade businesses and retail stores.

The forum was the latest in a series of consultations the school has had with stakeholder groups as they seek to discover the ideal Whanganui High School graduate.

"Obviously academic excellence is important - this is a school, after all - but we also want to find out what attitudes and values people think our graduates should have as part of the Whanganui community," board of trustee member Jo Maguire said.

The school has asked parents, staff, local iwi and even the students themselves for their views on the graduate profile.

"It's great to have so many different parties involved. We had nearly 400 responses from parents, which we were very pleased about," Mrs Maguire said.

"And we had so many responses from the businesses - they were very enthusiastic."

The project was started by the board of trustees in 2016, but principal Martin McAllen, who started at the school at the beginning of 2017, has embraced it with enthusiasm.  

He said the graduate profile project was running alongside another project to look at the school's curriculum.

"The school's senior leadership is looking at what changes we might make for 2018. We want to have the most relevant curriculum for our students," Mr McAllen said.

"It's very timely - it's quite a while since changes were made to the curriculum."

The curriculum project is very in-depth, looking into such details as whether the current timetabling works well.

Mr McAllen said the next phase in the graduate profile project was to collate all the responses and come up with the attributes and skills of an ideal graduate.

"Sixty per cent of Whanganui's teenagers come to Whanganui High School. So if we get it right, it will benefit Whanganui as a whole," he said.

By Anne-Marie McDonald
Wanganui Chronicle 22/5/17