Colwill School

Robert Taylor

Principal, Colwill School

Rob grew up in Avondale (one of six children) and attended Rosebank Primary as a foundation pupil then Avondale Intermediate and College, where he was a prefect. With an enthusiasm for school Rob always wanted to be a teacher not only because his love of children but also to utilise the skills he had in arts, music, drama and sport. Graduating from North Shore Teachers College Rob’s first year was at Blockhouse Bay Primary, then Avondale Primary, Edendale School and Avondale Intermediate, where he was a senior teacher. Then Rob and family decided to move out of Auckland to give his two daughters a different experience. He moved to the South Island to Hokitika Primary, where Rob started in 1987 as deputy principal and spent a considerable time as acting principal. “We only planned to be there for a couple of years but we loved it. Seven years later we moved to the Hutt Valley, to take up the principal’s position at Pinehaven School, near Silverstream.” Ten years in Wellington gave Rob the opportunity to complete his master’s degree in education which he did with distinction and he commenced his PhD, investigating how the self-managed school model had impacted on the role of the school principal in Ireland, Victoria Australia and New Zealand. In 2004 Rob moved back to West Auckland and became principal of Colwill School in Massey East. “I’m keen to imbed the core curriculum and grow the school into an arts - eco-school, with live animals and sustainable organic gardens in an artistically inspired environment. We have a diverse multi-cultural school and an amazing teaching team – it’s a really neat staff to be in!” Rob is establishing a charitable trust as a vehicle for NZ school children to be directly involved in supporting poorer schools in the third world. His aim initially is to enable Colwill School students to establish links with a foreign school and act as its “big brother or sister”. Ultimately the trust will finance the building of schools and fund NZ teachers and students to travel as volunteers to work in the school that their own school sponsors. This concept could become a uniquely West Auckland School initiative. Rob will be travelling to India and Pakistan in October to investigate this further. Rob is appropriately proud of his daughters’ achievements; Carolyn, the one in Auckland has a successful television career while Joanna in Wellington has her own band that has appeared in China and Oman and who is presently writing her own album.