School where teacher killed finds courage to carry on

Tributes to murdered teacher Lois Dear continued to arrive at Strathmore School yesterday. Picture / Alan Gibson

Courage. It is the word Lois Dear's colleagues discovered on her blackboard when they went in to retrieve what they needed for her students to begin class yesterday without her.

Virtues are part of the curriculum at Strathmore School and now, in the wake of her murder, the one Ms Dear chose to focus on has taken on a special resonance for her fellow staff, pupils and the rest of Tokoroa.

"It just seemed that that was a really appropriate message coming from her for our community," principal Murray Kendrick said yesterday.

Mr Kendrick said finding the word on the board after the classroom had been blessed and police allowed staff in had felt like a message about "needing the courage to carry on, to be there for her and everybody else".

The school reopened yesterday, four days after the 66-year-old teacher's battered body was found in her Room 4 classroom.

The pile of flowers and cards outside the school gate had grown since the previous day, as students filed into the grounds, some alone, but many holding their parents' hands.

Staff had aimed to make the day as normal as possible for children on advice from trauma experts.

Apart from a police car or two, several people in fluorescent Salvation Army vests, and the flowers, it appeared that way, with the last pupils sprinting in just after 9am.

The day began with an assembly for parents and children that opened with karakia (prayers) and a song.

Melissa Patena and her partner Charlie Tiare, whose youngest daughter is at the school, said the assembly had started the healing process.

"Just an unfortunate person [Ms Dear's killer] doesn't make the school turn all bad," Mr Tiare said. "It's still a good school."

The children began classes about 9.30am and by 11.15am, when Mr Kendrick opened the school to media, Ms Dear's students were settled in their new classroom in an administration block adjoining the staffroom.

A row of 13 small teddy bears lined one windowsill where the children sat, heads immersed in books under the watchful eye of their relieving teacher, Vivianne Clarke, and a social worker.

Mr Kendrick said teachers were still hard-hit by Ms Dear's death but the pupils had bounced back quickly.

"We're up and running in all honesty," he said. "We're virtually back to normal."

Seems they have taken her message of courage to heart.