Back to School

COMET Principal for A Day puts business leaders in a school's driving seat as they shadow a Principal for a day to observe the challenges and strengths of education at work in our communities.

Philippa started the morning having breakfast with Principal Brent Jenkin and a group of senior staff followed by a tour of the school to give her a real feel of the environment. A highlight was talking to a class of year 6 students about engineering.

“I could tell they were listening from the thoughtful questions they asked!” says Philippa.

Spending a day back at school was an eye opener for Philippa. ”It was a great day. The challenges for Principals these days are not so different to running a business. We had a lot of issues in common including management of stakeholders, staff, finance, marketing etc.”

Running a business has many similarities with running a school

As part of COMET’s Principal for a Day, a reciprocal visit by Brent Jenkin to Resolve Group will take place in the next couple of months.

Philippa regularly speaks at “Girls into Engineering” events at Auckland University as well as mentoring university students, managers and engineers.

Below are some of the comments from the students Philippa spoke to:

When Mrs Walker went to university she wanted to do science. In her Physics paper there seemed to be about 1000 students! But only three, yes, three girls! I was shocked! She owns her own company, she’s the boss. She said that in her earlier years, some engineering companies didn’t even have a ladies room! I thought that she was great. I enjoyed her being here and I hope she can come again soon. Jean Van Wyk

I asked a question: “Do environmental engineers work on landscapes?” The talk was cool and I want to be an Aeronautical, mechanical and environmental engineer. Mrs Walker works with civil engineers. Zane Karai

Mrs Walker really inspired me to study engineering, even though I already wanted to work as an engineer, I feel more encouraged. Kelly Wong