Retiring teacher proud of ‘community school’

Press, 7 May 1987, Page 2

Retiring teacher proud of ‘community school’

When the retiring deputy principal of Kaiapoi High School took up his appointment 15 years ago, he found a huge pile of rubble where the school should have been. Mr Vern Tie arrived while the school was still being built, and spent his first two years there working among machinery and a lot of noise while the classrooms were completed round their occupants. . Mr Tie, aged 60, will retire on Friday after 15 years as deputy principal and mathematics teacher at the school. He and his wife, Phillipa, first explored the township of Kaiapoi in 1972 when they took their son to a scout jamboree in the area.

“I said to my wife, ‘lf ever there is a school built here that Is where I would like to work,’ and soon after we saw an advertisement in the Education Gazette.” Mr Tie, who at the time was head of the mathematics department at Bayfield High School, Dunedin, applied for the post of deputy principal at the new school, and was accepted. He has never regretted the move and is proud to have worked at what he describes as a community school. The Tie family lived in Kaiapoi for 12 years, during which time Mr Tie served two terms on the Kaiapoi Borough Council. For the last three years they have lived in Christchurch.

“I value my time at Kaiapoi. I feel that I have had a very well filled and satisfying time here,” he said.

“In 1974 we got our first external examination results, which were well above average and Indicated that Kaiapoi High School could hold its own academically. The school seemed to come of age that year because of those results,” he said.

The pressures on teaching staff were increasing nowadays, particularly with the fast-changing curriculum, Mr Tie said. “One of the greatest assets a teacher can have is a sense of humour.”

Mr Tie certainly had an amusing and interesting introduction to his teaching career. He and Mrs

Tie spent five years living in a small Australian mining town, Bullfinch, between Kalgoorlie arid Perth, and for two of these Mr Tie worked as a miner. He was asked to relieve for a senior teacher at the Bullfinch School of Mines one day, and discovered that he "thoroughly enjoyed” teaching mathematics.

Mr Tie worked for two years as a lecturer at the school before returning to Dunedin, where he taught at three secondary schools, including a onemonth stint at a private school.

The head of Kaiapoi High School’s social studies department, Mr John Baird, has been appointed the new deputy principal.