Our Kiwi Home: Robin – all about creativity
Saturday, 17 May 2025
Robin Sutton retired as principal of Hornby High School two years ago after a tenure of seven years.
Since his retirement he has been “back in the harness” after he was contacted by the principal of Darfield High School and asked if he would fill in for him for a term.
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“That was quite cool, as all the kids and staff were lovely, exactly what I experienced at Hornby,” Robin said. “However, it gave me clarity over my decision to retire. In many ways I could have gone on, but it was only after I’d retired that I realised how exhausted I actually was. In fact, I was probably completely burnt out, and I think there was a bit of depression in there as well. So,yes, the experience at Darfield was delightful and it confirmed the rightness of my decision.”
For a decade or so, there’d been a lot of talk about how to make the job of a school principal more sustainable, Robin said. His work week was regularly 60 hours and often up to 80 hours a week.
“When you’re in that kind of leadership role, people want to see you, whether it’s at the basketball game on a Friday night, or at the footy game on Saturday afternoon. It’s hard to know how to reduce that load, to me it’s just the nature of the job.”
I asked Robin what he did for his own soul when he was working those 60-plus hours a week at school, and whether that was when he started writing poetry.
“During each holiday my wife, Lorraine, would drag me away for perhaps two or three nights for a break somewhere, and in 2022 we were over in Akaroa,” he replied. “I don’t know where it came from, but I just suddenly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote my first poem – it was quite a surprise.”
I asked him if writing that poem made him feel good, and he said it did. “It still does, but the inspiration comes and goes. Sometimes you’re in the right groove, and sometimes you’re not.”
Robin’s big professional passion has been how we insert creativity into schools. It came from his time at Christ’s College, where he taught for about 14 years, working with “some fabulous staff”.
“We’d often talk about the role and purpose of schools going into the future. My reasoning went like this: If you look at how technology is progressively taking over the kinds of things that a lot of us human beings might have done, you then ask the question, what are you left with? What’s our purpose? I came to the conclusion that the purpose of schools is to allow us to be truly human. What does that mean?
“Well, if you ask 100 people, you’ll probably get 100 different answers, but to me, it was the ability to be empathetic and the ability to be creative.”
In Robin’s first year at Hornby, they held a strategic planning sessions to develop a “vision” for the school.
“We decided to become a centre of creative excellence, and for the next seven years I relentlessly promoted that message about creativity… I would say to the school board, ‘what does creativity look like around this board table’, or to the sports people, ‘what does creativity look like on the footy field’. So, I wasn’t saying fine arts don’t matter, but what I was saying instead was, it’s broader than that.”
When Robin taught at Christ’s College, he often had the privilege of attending conferences all over the place and several times he went to the fabulous EduTech conferences in Sydney or Brisbane. At two, the inspiring English educationalist and orator Sir Ken Robinson spoke, Robin recalled.
“The problem I found with Sir Ken was that he would really passionately motivate me around the issue of creativity in schools, but he didn’t seem to offer many answers as to what that would look like - how you would do it.”
Hornby High is a part of the Manaiakalani network, which is driven by the pedagogy ‘Learn Create Share’, so creativity is meant to be at the centre of teacher practice, Robin said.
“There is huge effort put into upskilling teachers to know what that looks like, feels like, sounds like. I find it frustrating that we are being fed this drivel about reading, writing and numeracy, and the whole ‘back to basics’ mantra. There is a large body of quality evidence that when you approach literacy and numeracy with the lens of creativity you get far better outcomes.”
About three years before Robin retired, he discovered the work of 1950s New Zealand educator Elwyn Richardson.
“I thought holy hell - why hasn’t someone told me about this before? Elwyn had run a little sole charge school at the top of the North Island, Ōruaiti … there were about 30 children, 50% were Māori, and 50% the children of European immigrants who had bought farmland up there. What he did was to approach everything through the lens of creativity, literacy, numeracy, and science.”
He wrote a book about it called In the Early Years, which Robin read and found to be fascinating. Then, Robin discovered a 2012 PhD thesis on Richardson written by Margaret MacDonald. “It’s one of those rare PhD publications that’s totally readable and accessible, and when I read it, I realised this was what I was after,” he said.
“What I’d done previously at Hornby, was I’d bought copies of Sir Ken Robinson’s book Creative Schools, and I’d given every single staff member a copy of this book. It didn’t matter whether it was the caretaker or a teacher, board member or support team member, everybody got a copy. So, when I discovered this PhD book, I thought that’s what I want.
“Unfortunately, they were $60 each, and of course budgets were pretty tight. I wrote to the CEO of [publisher New Zealand Council of Educational Research], told him my story and said I’ve got a really, really brazen request: I want you to give me 120 copies of this book.”
Three days later, Robin got an email back saying they’d do it, and gave a copy to every staff member. “I told our staff if you really want to know what I stand for – read this.”
Now, I have to admit I’ve actually known Robin since high school, but apart from becoming recent friends on Facebook there is so much to catch up on, so I asked him to tell me everything that had happened since we’d played wrong notes in the school orchestra together.
Robin laughed and said: “My first teaching position was at Christchurch Girls’ High, but after seven good years there I wanted a change, so for the next three and a half years, I became the director at Ferrymead Heritage Park. That was a very tough job as there was never enough funding to do what needed to be done, and the wider community rather took this very special Christchurch treasure for granted.”
Robin then worked at Canterbury Museum, but it didn’t take him long to realise teaching was still his calling.
He returned to the classroom as head of commerce at Hornby High, then took the same position at Christ’s College in 2001 - starting the same week as 9/11. “I remember watching it unfold on a television in the staff common room.”
After two years, Robin got the job as one of the senior masters - today you’d call that an assistant principal.
“Oddly until that time I’d never held a job for more than seven years. I don’t know why - maybe it’s a seven-year itch, but I stayed there longer, partly because of the quakes. We used to live in the east of Christchurch, and we took a massive hit financially, even though we came out of it in the end with a brand new house.”
I asked Robin at what point he decided he’d like to become a principal – had the thought been in the back of his mind?
“It hadn’t actually, for the classic reason of fear of ‘imposter syndrome’,” he replied. “What I too often saw around me were people who became principals for the wrong reasons. I was afraid that I would apply for such jobs purely for reasons of ego, which is my pet hate.
“I had a really good friend who’s still at Christ’s and we used to take boys running as we were in charge of the Harriers. We were out running on the hills one day, and all the boys were of course miles ahead of us, as they do. I was talking to him about this, and I can’t really remember exactly what he said, but his advice shook me awake and I started applying.”
Robin said he’d never forget his first principal interview. He went into it at the top of the shortlist, on paper, and came out at the bottom. “After 10 minutes of that interview a little voice in the back of my head was saying, ‘Man, I wouldn’t employ this guy.’ It was the worst interview I’d ever given.”
But his appointment as principal at Hornby High seemed the most natural thing - “a return home if you like” - and the creativity thing became the big driver. “It’s interesting to see how it evolved, and how staff at Hornby bought into it… It gave them license to actually be creative in their teaching.”
When Robin started as principal, he did what all new principals do and interviewed every staff member “to get the lay of the land”. “I remember the head of drama saying to me, ‘I can’t get most of the kids to perform.’ By the time I left, you couldn’t keep the kids off the stage. They were confident and comfortable taking risks and giving it a go.
“We had a great head of music there, and she too at times struggled to get kids to perform – they were often just too frightened. But, as time went by, more and more kids were happy to go on stage as they knew it didn’t matter how good it was – as long as they were comfortable.
“Funnily enough I’m the same when I post my poems on Facebook – they’re not always great poems, but I’m prepared to take that risk – creativity is all about risk taking.”
Robin remembered being bullied at school because he played a musical instrument. There was a bullying culture from what he called “the first XV thugs”, and he always felt like he was on the outside, never accepted for who he was.
“The chances are, there were probably lots of other boys who felt the same, but you never connected. If you weren’t a rugby player, you didn’t really add up to anything. Looking back, I think this experience made me a more empathetic teacher and principal. It also gave me a determination to combat bullying at school in any way I could.
“Of course we’d often get the ‘you never do anything about bullying’ accusation. That generally translated as ‘you didn’t string the little bastard up by his thumbs and whip him to within an inch of his life’, so in their eyes you did nothing. We always acted on bullying accusations as I think all schools do, but there are legal limits to what schools can do.”
Robin said he looked back to his interview to get into Teachers College and wondered how they saw anything in him. “I was a shy, inarticulate, unworldly-wise 17-year-old. How on earth did I get in? Yet now, I can ad lib in front of crowds of people if I need to - where did that come from?”
Robin believes the ability to see and find the best in people is what makes good teachers. “They’re constantly looking for it. The people who aren’t looking for it are never going to be teachers.”
I was curious to know how Robin managed the transition into retirement. “I don’t know if I have picked myself up,” he said. “I think I’m getting better, but it’s very hard to go from one day being responsible for 1000-plus people, people beating the path to your door, and a 100-plus emails a day to deal with. Then literally the very next day there is nothing.
“I remember saying to a number of people during my tenure as a principal, if my name wasn’t on that door, you wouldn’t be interested in me at all. I hadn’t prepared for retirement even though I thought I had. A very good friend had said ‘don’t let your job define you’. It’s been an interesting ride.
Robin has retained an interest in education with his work on three charitable trusts: Uru Mānuka Education Trust, Ako Ōtautahi- Learning City Christchurch, and Greater Christchurch Schools Network. “It’s good to keep contact with good people doing good work.”
For a year, he’s toyed with the idea of doing a master’s in writing. “There’s no earthly purpose other than self-gratification and self-improvement, as it’s not likely to lead to a new career,” he said. He is afraid of deadlines though, as he finds the creative thing comes and goes.
Since our chat I am thrilled to share Robin has enrolled in the master’s course at the University of Canterbury. “I want to improve my writing,” he said. “I will enjoy the stimulation and it’s an opportunity to do something for me after a career spent focussed on others.”
As we finished our much overdue catch-up, Robin happened to mention he and his wife Lorraine started dancing rock‘n’roll in 1996 and began competing in 2007. In 2016 he qualified as a National Association Judge, but sadly Lorraine isn’t competing any more as her body needs a rest after the frenzy of the dance floor. Robin still competes with a friend. He’s certainly a man of many delightful surprises.