2019 Common Election results

Jason Ian Britten
Elected

My name is Jason Britten and I am standing for re-election to the Board of Trustees for Birkenhead Primary School.

My wife Kate and I have a daughter Lucy in is year 4, and a son Oliver is in year 3. We also have 6 month old twins that will attend the school.

I am a qualified Lawyer and Accountant, and currently work at 2degrees as the Head of Channels and Alliances in the Business Sales team. I have spent my professional life working various roles including commercial and procurement, property and resource management, and tax consultancy, This background has helped in my position on the board for the last 3 years.

I currently look after the finance portfolio at the school and believe one to the boards most important roles is to ensure school funds are spent in the right areas to maximise student achievement and well-being. We also need to make sure the school is getting good value from the money it is spending.

A key board of trustees decision recently made was the appointment of Birkenhead Primary’s new principle, Bevan Verryt. Bevan brings energy and excitement to the role, and I would welcome the opportunity to continue working with rest of the board and Bevan to continue improvements at the school.

I am very passionate about my kids’ education and development, I have really enjoyed the last 3 years on the Board of Trustees, and am excited about the opportunity to spend another term focused on continually improving the school for all our children.

My name is Jo McDonald and I am standing for the Birkenhead Primary School (BPS) Board of Trustees as a Parent Representative. My children Taylor (Year 5) and Elise (Year 1) are both at BPS and I have been a parent Board Rep for the last 3 years. I have enjoyed representing the parents at BPS and working with the team at school to ensure that BPS is a fantastic school for our children, and for the teachers. I would like to continue on the Board for a second term. During my time as a board member I have focused on the property aspects of the school. The board has spent a lot of time lobbying the Ministry of Education to ensure the school has the classroom provisions it needs now and in the future. We have worked hard to obtain the additional classrooms that BPS needs so it is no longer necessary to close the library in Term 4 to use as an overflow classroom. We have also undertaken our 10 Year Property Plan and had it approved by the Ministry. We are now working through our classroom upgrades, having just completed all the work on the Senior block and the Junior block work will commence shortly. We secured a commitment from the Ministry to build our new roll growth classrooms and will be working with the Ministry over the next few years to confirm the exact design, build details and project plan. We have also ensured through this initial design phase that the playgrounds and field are retained so our students have lots of outdoor space as the school roll increases. As a professional development manager with 18 years project delivery experience, I believe I have an excellent skill set to continue to work with the Ministry to ensure our school has a good experience through this process. I also worked together with the Board to select our new Principal, focus on student and staff wellness, and ensure our teachers are well supported and resourced. We also achieved a very good ERO result and are on a 5 year review cycle which indicates the school is being run well. I would appreciate the opportunity to continue the work I have been doing. Thank you for your consideration.