John Bangma
John Bangma is a New Zealand education leader, long-time Principal/Tumuaki of Mairehau Primary School in Christchurch (2001–2024), who led his school through the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and later served on the NZ Principals' Federation executive and Canterbury Primary Principals' Association.
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APPEARANCES
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PODCASTS
Sep 8, 2026
John BangmaGUEST
I took over as president of the Canterbury Primary Principals Association the day after the February earthquakes.
John BangmaGUEST
So I was involved across the city with schools as well as working with the Ministry of Education.
John BangmaGUEST
I guess before I get to that, we'd already been through the September earthquake and that was in the middle of the night.
John BangmaGUEST
We had our eldest daughter and her husband and our seven-month-old granddaughter living with us at the time.
John BangmaGUEST
So all of that personal stuff was already sitting there and then we got this earthquake.
John BangmaGUEST
So I just returned on that day from three of my classes were in the CBD on a field trip.
John BangmaGUEST
They'd just been in the art gallery and two classes were, when the earthquake struck, walking past the art center on the way to the museum.
John BangmaGUEST
So the first I knew about it was I had just sat down in the staff room and had taken out my sandwich to eat, would have been a ham sandwich, and the earthquake struck.
speaker_2UNKNOWN
Mm-hmm.