Week in Auckland

I have had a great week in Auckland with my mates Terry and Peter at a principal's study tour. We went up on Sunday and booked into the Mercure which is a great location. On Monday we had a few key note speakers - most of which were great with one exception.

That night Terry, Peter, Jude and I caught the fery to Devonport and had a great Italian and back in the city we hit the Lenin Bar for the compulsory shots of vodka infusions including 2 with very hot chilli.

The next day I visited Massey High School and enjoyed their presentations on academic counselling, literacy and restorative practices. This is a school like ours but with 2500 students! I have thought about a couple of good ideas from there to fine tune our restorative practices and to improve teacher parent hui.

That night Terry and I wandered up to K Rd to dine at Sri Penang. We got there a bit early so popped into a bar for a couple of beers to realise we were in a gay bar. I sat close to Terry so that the others realised I was in a relationship! The restaurant was, once again, outstanding.

The next day I caught the ferry and visited Takapuna Grammar which is a visually impressive school. I was impressed with their facilities and also with the work they had done to establish a school-wide pedagogy which has given me some good ideas for our school as we prepare for the NZ Curriculum.

That night we dined at the Viaduct and Terry and I had a couple of beers at a bar playing choice music on the way home.

The next day was supposed to be a full day of bringing it together followed by the Conference Dinner. However, business was over at lunch. It would have been possible to drive home on Thursday afternoon but because we had paid for our room and the Conference Dinner we had no choice but to stay! Managed to squeeze in a visit to afew music stores and bought 6 more of the Top 500! I had a voucher for Marbecks as a thank you for being interviewed for 2 hours by Rose, a MA student, who was interviewing pakeha principals who work in schools with a high Maori roll.

Spent Friday travelling home.