“Our objective was to redesign the whole school, a sustainable framework that would deliver our vision, improve outcomes, and ensure everyone achieves the Dilworth Learner Profile”
Asha Tupou Vea, Special Projects Lead
Asha Tupou Vea has been at the heart of Project Reset, a critical initiative at Dilworth. As the Special Projects Lead, her extensive expertise and dedication have been key in guiding the school’s profound reimagining of student-centred education and well-being since 2019.
Project Reset is a fundamental, ground-up redesign of Dilworth.
The most significant programme of change in Dilworth’s lifetime, it is acknowledged as being a critical piece of work that has transformed the school. It has placed learners at the centre of decision-making and in the wake of the historical abuse at the school, has contributed to the safest possible environment for students today.
Asha Tupou Vea is the Special Projects Lead, with Project Reset as core part of her role. With her extraordinary depth of knowledge in strategic and curriculum design, wide experience of the school, and a proven track record of outstanding commitment to students and their learning and welfare, Asha was the ideal person for Headmaster Dan Reddiex to appoint as one of the four senior leaders on Project Reset in 2019. The remarkable progress and impact achieved over the past four years have shown she was the right choice.
Asha first joined Dilworth School as a foundation staff member at the Mangatāwhiri Campus in 2011. In 2013 she took maternity leave, becoming a mother to her first two children and gaining further education industry knowledge, before returning to Dilworth in 2018. Since then, she’s held a wide variety of roles, including teaching and working in boarding, Deputy Head of Campus and Curriculum Lead, Head of Campus, and Curriculum Designer.
“Dan Reddiex laid down the challenge to staff, students, and their families at the end of the year prize giving in 2019,” Asha says. “It was a wero to all of us, to the whole community. Are you here for the same cause, to serve our young men? Are you willing to join together to shape our future?’ He demanded excellence from us all, to become the school we should be and could be. It was a powerful message. It’s from that moment that the Project Reset team was launched and we began our work towards challenging the status quo for the young men we serve.
Designed from the outset to completely transform Dilworth to better reflect our current community, Project Reset utilised the school’s refreshed Vision and Values and the Safeguarding Principles, to codesign “foundation stones” with our whole community. These foundations would be essential for the safety and success of our current and future students: the “Dilworth Learner Profile” that guides our aspirations, a Model for Wellbeing that guides our direction, and Principles for Learning and Living that guides our decision making as a school community.
“We had to listen to our community, go right back to our ‘why,’ our core purpose, and completely reset our shared direction and priorities,” Asha says. “The focus that drove us was simple: what would it look like if our students were truly at the centre of the school’s aspirations, decisions, and direction? What would be best for our young men, and not what was easy for us? Our objective was to realign and redesign the whole school from 2023, to create a sustainable framework that would deliver our vision, improve student outcomes, and ensure every one of our young men achieves the Dilworth Learner Profile.”
Ākonga at the Centre is the core Principle for Learning that had been the driver of teaching and learning decisions and design of the “Dilworth curriculum”, a bespoke future-focused curriculum that supports students to succeed in life at and beyond Dilworth.
Asha is most proud of the three-strand design of the curriculum that are intertwined and distinctly Dilworth: The Learning Areas, Learning in the Outdoors and the Ako Puāwaitanga Curriculum, and supported by the wider curriculum.
Ako Puawāitanga, the bespoke wellbeing curriculum is a unique and important addition to Dilworth.
“It’s integrated with our Christian faith and creates an opportunity to nurture and grow the whole person and provides our students with the tools they need to flourish in all parts of their life. It’s about personal and social growth and how our young men interact with the world. We pair students with a coach in small groups, and they have time to connect and learn together three times a week. Our students have expressed that they feel heard, they feel safe, and they feel connected. They have mentioned how helpful it is to have strategies to respond appropriately to challenging situations in life.”
Asha says Dilworth still looks for continuous improvement, and the quality of leaders, educators and staff to support and sustain the changes has been critical to the success of Project Reset. “What we focus on is what we value, and what we value grows.”
What does that look like in real life? Asha: “The success is seeing the growth of our young men because of the learning and experiences they are part of at Dilworth. It’s the young man, who before Dilworth, couldn’t swim. He’d never swum in a river. Now, he is more confident in the water from additional swimming lessons, he’s learnt when and how to cross a river safely, and he’s gained surf awareness competencies and is ready to do it all again and more next year. Another student, initially struggling to develop a sense of identity, and unsure how to embrace his own culture when he began boarding at Dilworth. Now, he has completed a language learning module of his own heritage, he sees the staff upskilling in their own cultural understanding and is a student leader on the Cultural Committee. The positive change that happens? It’s real.”
Asha has found her work in helping transform Dilworth has changed her, too. “Being able to witness the growth and development of our students, and seeing the impact on themselves and their families, was where I felt most aligned with the mission initially. But now it’s become more than that, I see the importance of this work for all people. It’s completely intertwined with my purpose - in my career, as an educator, as a woman, and as a mother. All of the parts that make up me are being shaped by the impact that I’m seeing.”
For Asha, there is still work to be done. “Our work is to honour the vision of our founders, James and Isabella Dilworth. As a parent, I understand the sacrifice involved in sending your kids to boarding school and giving up time with the children you love. You’re entrusting them into our care, not just with their learning and personal and social growth, but also with their safety and sense of belonging. With who they are and who they’ll become. You have to be certain the school’s values align with your own.”