Henderson South School

Cliff Hughes

Principal, Henderson South School

Cliff grew up in Onehunga and attended Hillsborough Primary and Onehunga High School. When a careers adviser steered him towards teaching Cliff was initially keen on becoming a police officer, however a two week familiarisation programme put him off to the degree that he immediately enrolled at the Auckland College of Education to become a primary school teacher, and at Massey University to complete his B Ed extramurally. “My first school was Mt Roskill Primary where I learned a lot from the principal Joan Scanlan. From there I had my OE, to the UK, teaching and travelling around. I came back home at the end of 1988, did some day to day relieving and then joined Robertson Road School in Mangere where I was for seven years, progressing to senior teacher.” A deputy principal’s role came up at Southern Cross Junior School which Cliff took and then his first appointment as principal was to Glen Innes Primary in 1998. Two years later he moved to his present school, attracted by the multi-cultural roll and his knowledge of ESOL. “In addition, when I came here the school had a physically disabled unit which I liked although this has since been disestablished as children have moved into the mainstream. My interests include the gifted and talented but I have also spent a lot of time in ESOL, particularly when it was in its infancy. This is a special niche for our school, where for 70% of our children English is a second language. We also have a lovely ICT suite and children provide a lot of self management in the use of computers. Seven years ago 10% of homes in the community had computers – now it’s 50%. “We are naturally strong culturally and sports-wise, recently coming second in the local Kapa Haka competition and in winning the local touch football competition. Academically our school always enters the University of News South Wales Australasian testing competitions and this year secured five high distinctions (top 1%) across all disciplines. “We also have excellent community relationships – a recently developed DVD on physical education featuring ball games, safety in the water etc has been distributed as a gesture of partnership.” Cliff and his partner have two sets of twin boys, 5 years old and 11 months.