Read the latest news from Rutherford College

Kia ora te whanau ō te Kōtuku

New Deputy Principals at Rutherford

It is our pleasure to announce that we have two new Deputy Principals at Rutherford College

We were delighted to welcome Janine Carr in Term 3, an experienced middle and senior leader who joins our community, bringing a strong background in curriculum transformation, staff development, and pastoral leadership.

Janine's leadership philosophy aligns closely with academic excellence, equity, and student well-being. Her previous work as Head of Science at Onehunga High School demonstrates significant, measurable success in driving student achievement. Beyond curriculum, Ms Carr has proven leadership capacity, having stepped into an acting Deputy Principal role to manage whole-school pastoral care, staff development, and strategic planning during a period of transition. Janine is married with two children.

In 2026 we will be welcoming Callum McGibbon. He is an experienced DP joining us from Mount Roskill Grammar. In his time at Mt Roskill he has progressed from being a first-year teacher to a Head of House and will have completed seven years in senior leadership when he starts at Rutherford College next year. His knowledge and strengths in pastoral care are traits that will be of immense value to our students and community.

Callum is of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāpuhi descent and has passion for and knowledge of Te Ao Māori.

His experience includes pastoral leadership with strengths in restorative practice. He has led numerous operational areas in daily school life including School Calendar, Education Outside the Classroom and most importantly strategic planning.

He loves the outdoors and has a background in Physical Education and a keen interest in rugby, league and cricket. Callum is married with two young children

Pastoral Review and Changes for 2026

For the past year our school has been involved in a review of our pastoral systems. The guiding purpose of our school’s pastoral system is to maximise the ability of students to succeed through creating an orderly and safe environment for all students.

Background - for the better part of 20 years Rutherford has had student numbers that grew from just below 1200 to operate between 1350 -1450 for most of that time. The existing structure for our Deans with the expected roll growth to in excess of 1600 next year needed a rethink. The external review team commissioned to conduct an initial review made the following comment about our pastoral team in May this year.

‘The Deans and Counselling staff at Rutherford College are very professional, hardworking and genuinely interested and invested in helping students.”  

We want to be able to maintain this philosophy and wider perception that we value the quality of the pastoral care we offer. To achieve this, we needed to look at how we resource this space with the increase in student numbers we are experiencing. Following the external feedback, we used their feedback to inform an ongoing problem-solving process to identify the challenges needing to be addressed. The challenges we identified were based firstly on data, and then enquiring further into the stories that sit behind the data. 

The following three challenges were what we kept as the central reason that guided our decision-making throughout the process.

The proposed refining and resource investment are necessary to: 

1. Address significant inequity, for students who are disproportionately represented in negative pastoral interactions. 
2. Continue to improve student achievement by mitigating low attendance and inconsistent academic mentoring.
3. Future-proof the system against predicted roll growth while maintaining a manageable Dean-to-student ratio (~270:1) and reducing workload disparity.

Other Solution Requirements included 

• Reduce Workload Disparity: The refinement must address and reduce the workload disparity currently experienced by Deans, especially at the junior level. 
• Enhance Whānau Engagement: The structure must make it easier to engage face-to-face with whānau, enabling critical interventions like home visits. 
• Utilise New Facilities: Make optimal use of the new student services centre, which  by the start of term 2 2026 will see Deans, Counsellors, Attendance and our Health Centre located at the front of the school.

What’s changing?

The result is that we are moving to a house-based system. With two Deans for each of the three existing houses. Each Dean will take responsibility for 3 tutor classes at each year’s level. Amongst other reasons it will mean there are six Deans, not one supporting our Year 9 cohort as they make the critical transition to secondary school. At the end of the year there will be six Deans supporting our Year 9 and 10 students after seniors head out on study leave. Further to this we can get more bang for our buck within the house system in terms of enhancing school culture and allowing senior students to lead this. 

We have also added a further two Deans to focus on learning and mentoring to support students whose academic progress requires something extra or different and earlier identification of this need. The life of a Dean whose primary role is pastoral care can get swamped by the next urgent student matter that needs their attention. This new provision creates the foundation for the tracking and early intervention that we strive to provide. The number of Deans for our regular students has increased from five to eight. We have also reinstated an International Dean, Lindy Cumming to support our international learners to ensure they too have support for their academic journey at Rutherford College.

FAQ’s 

1. Will my child stay in the same tutor class? Yes
2. Will my young person stay in the same house? Yes
3. Will they have the same tutor teacher? Yes, unless that teacher has left or received an internal promotion within our school.
4. Will my young person retain the same Dean? On the law of averages, probably not.
5. When will we know who is/are the Deans of our young people? First week in December is our target to get this information out to the wider community.

Junior Exams 21 and 24 November Timetable

Students will be released for the day at the conclusion of their exams. Remember students can find study tips on the Rutherford College Study Site to help them prepare for the exams.

Please note that the 013 and 014 buses will not be running on the afternoon of the exams or on 10 December after prizegiving.

Junior Prizegiving - Wednesday 10 December- School Hall

We extend an invitation to any parents who would like to attend our end of year prizegiving.

Year 9, 10am
Year 10, 12pm 

Students will be released for the year directly after prizegiving finishes. 

Kia kaha

Gary Moore