NEW FACES: Paora Peeti, 5, left, and Leeroy Pomare-Turner, 5, are two of the 30 new entrants who started this week at Masterton Primary School. PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA
NEW FACES: Paora Peeti, 5, left, and Leeroy Pomare-Turner, 5, are two of the 30 new entrants who started this week at Masterton Primary School. PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA
Thirty new entrants began a new phase of life at Masterton Primary School on Monday.
Principal Sue Walters said there are three Year One classrooms at the school, which began for the year on Monday with a standing roll of 255 pupils.
Another 45 new entrants are yet to begin this year as well.
The year also marks a first for new MPS teacher Leigh McKinlay.
Mrs Walters said the school kept the new entrant pupil-to-teacher ratio at 15 to 1, which had been a successful formula since she began as principal eight years ago.
"I don't believe in loading up the classes because if you put in the groundwork now you have far less problems later. That policy has been in place since my arrival and has paid big dividends."
Ms McKinlay, who is teaching a class of 19 Year One and Two pupils, who each have been at the school for at least six months, said she was fortunate to have captured a teaching post in her hometown of Masterton.
Ms McKinlay said she had been schooled at the former Totara Drive School and at Wairarapa College, before she began studies at Massey University in Palmerston North.
She had been studying nutrition, she said, while working a part-time job with children.
"I liked working with children better, so yeah, I changed horses mid-stream and started training as a teacher."
Ms McKinlay had served her final placement as a trainee teacher at MPS, Mrs Walters said, and was wholeheartedly welcomed back as a full-time teacher along with the more than 50 other teachers, RTLB special education teachers, cleaners and support staff at the school.
"I feel very fortunate to be able to come back here to teach. It's awesome," Ms McKinlay said.
