Principal's Letter - June
JUNE 2021 update
Hi friends,
We’re well into a year that has brought significant change into the life of the school. In February FOUR new staff members joined the team as a result of a strategic restructure of how the courses are delivered.
Firstly we welcomed Dr. Stephen Small as our new Academic Manager. Stephen is an accomplished professional musician in his own right but also has considerable experience in running programs - most recently at University of Auckland and then for the last 6 years at SAE. Stephen has helped us chart out a brand new structure for our three programs and also helping us in developing new programs for the future (watch this space).
Stephen small
Academic Manager
The next appointment was our new HOD Dance Kisha September. Kisha comes to us from completing her Masters at University of Auckland and training as a high school teacher. Kisha brings plenty of new ideas to the Dance programs and with our newly renovated dance studio there is a lot of new energy in the dance department.
Kisha September
HOD Dance
Then we appointed our new HOD Drama, Bianca Seinafo. Bianca was trained at Toi Whakaari and has been tutoring here for a couple of years already and you will remember her from her Direction of our Grad show last year - VASA. Bianca has already brought in a number of changes and has been instrumental in bringing more of the industry into the school and for getting our students out there too. Only last week they were lucky enough to spend the day on a film shoot getting up real close to the action.
BIanca Seinafo
HOD Drama
And then later in February we welcomed Dr Andrew Faleatua as our new HOD Music. Andrew came to us from teaching at the Conservatorium in Sydney - Australia’s premiere music school. He is also an accomplished composer for film with a growing reputation in this area. Already Andrew has made an impact with fresh ideas and only yesterday our Music students were in at the Tuning Fork, a specialist venue in the Spark Arena, collaborating with SAE students to put on a short concert.
Andrew Faleatua
HOD Music
So you can see lots of changes and new developments. I am very excited by all this new energy and it really is the start of something quite different here at EXCEL.
Kind regards,
Exec. Director & Principal
John Knight