Annemarie Biggs, principal of Auckland's Glendowie Primary School, has taken the Principalship award. Her work has seen the school's decile rating improve and the school roll increase.

Ms Biggs says she developed an "I care" philosophy, which underpins the school environment.

She says if the children feel safe at school, and recognise that they would be able to learn because the right quality programmes were in place, then the staff could start to influence the sorts of lessons that were provided for them.

Annemarie Biggs says she was very humbled to be given the award.

The judges paid tribute to her willingness to take risks and find new ways of doing things.

Ms Biggs says teachers need to identify the priorities in the large curriculum of today's schools, because every parents wants to see improve learning, particularly in the areas of literacy and numeracy.

She says money, time and quality teachers need to be focused on the priority areas

Christine Miller, co-head of school at Kelston Deaf Education Centre, received the Excellence in Senior Leadership award. Ms Miller has helped establish Kelston as a world-class centre for deaf education.

She says the trick has been to approach each student as an individual within the context of the national curriculum

The judges say her work has made a significant impact on the lives of the students and will continue to do so for years to come.

Ms Miller says she is convinced deaf students can achieve at levels comparable with other children.

Annemarie Biggs says she is pleased that the importance of the work done by teachers is being recognised by big businesses like Microsoft, who linked up with the University of Auckland to make the awards.

Microsoft NZ managing director Ross Peat paid tribute to the winners and the runners up in the competition. He says their drive for continuous improvement among their students and staff contribute significantly to realising the potential of New Zealand's future leaders.

Source: http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=62294&cat=1005&c=w