Life comes full circle for Turakina principal

Turakina School's new principal Leigh McKay with some of her happy pupils. Photo/supplied

Turakina School has a new principal whose face was already familiar to parents, if not their children.

"I grew up here and went to this school," says Leigh McKay.

"And I'm really excited to be back."

McKay has taken the reins from long-serving former principal Margaret McLean and says the school Board of Trustees and families offer great support.

"I've most recently been teaching at Gonville School and worked at Whanganui City College for a year, which I loved.

"I've been overseas and I taught at big schools in Sydney's eastern suburbs but to come back to the school where I started my own education is just wonderful."

When the Chronicle visited the school last week, McKay was working with Year 4 to 8 pupils on their maths assignments.

"The younger ones are working on multiples of 100s while the older pupils are working in the 1000s," she says.

Outside the school swimming pool has had a recent upgrade and the vegetable garden is still producing masses of tomatoes, zucchini and kale.

The children have also created an enchanted fairy garden and McKay says school families and community volunteers help at the school is numerous ways.

Lysha Brennan is a full-time teacher working with the junior pupils at Turakina and Wendy Chadwick is the principal release teacher for McKay.

"We have a number of pupils whose families are new to the area and we hope to see more of them here," she says.

The school, which is about 20 minutes' drive south of Whanganui has a roll of 32.