Napier Boys’ High School headmaster Jarred Williams appointed to Hamilton job

Napier Boys’ High School will have its third new leader in less than a decade after current headmaster Jarred Williams’ resignation to take up the appointment of principal at Hamilton Boys’ High School.

His new appointment was announced in Hamilton on Tuesday and confirmed by Williams in an email to the school community, and he will depart at the end of term 1 in 2024.

He will have served three months short of three years since he arrived in 2021 to replace Matt Bertram, who in 2016 had replaced Ross Brown, who had been headmaster since 1997.

Williams has been at Napier Boys’ High during a major and ongoing building project, with a range of new suites and other facilities for modern education needs.

An “Island Bay boy”, Williams went to Rongotai College in Wellington before some time at Church College in Hamilton, where he later taught at Hamilton Boys’ High.

Jarred Williams (left) as Napier Boys' High School headmaster in a tour of building developments. He leaves at the end of term 1 in 2024 to become headmaster at Hamilton Boys' High School. Photo / NZME

He told Hawke’s Bay Today he had intended spending more time in Hawke’s Bay, but “the timing’s not always right” and the opportunity to return north came with the retirement of Susan Hassall, after 22 years as headmaster at HBHS.

As well as a professional challenge, he will have to face up to the Napier pupils he knows when the two Super 8 schools meet in the next of their classic first XV rugby matches next year.

It was this year that Napier BHS beat Hamilton BHS for the first time since 2011, but Hamilton got payback by winning the Super 8 final in Hamilton.

Williams’ move means both the Napier and Hastings boys’ high schools will have new headmasters in 2024, with Hastings BHS having lost popular long-time principal Rob Sturch when he died on November 29.