"It means I can save on tour guide costs — I’ll take myself around the sites."
The 35-year-old Columba College classical studies teacher won a 2016 Woolf Fisher Fellowship, which provides up to $10,000 for him to study the people, places, and events of classical Italy, and how they influence the modern world.
Classical studies is an interdisciplinary subject, in which pupils engage with literature, languages, art, history, science, technology, religion and philosophy.
Mr Hayden was one of nine school teachers and five principals from throughout New Zealand to be selected to travel overseas to examine different teaching practices.
The fellowships acknowledges and encourages excellence in educational leadership.
Mr Hayden said he had never been to Italy, let alone seen many of the relics of ancient Rome.
"I still can’t quite believe I got selected for this — I’m struggling to grasp the magnitude of it all.
"It will be tantamount to a religious experience for me — all these things that I’ve been obsessed with since I was in year 13 when I started doing classics.
"To be able to look at them, soak it all up, just bask in it, and think about how teaching classics got me here — it’s mind-boggling."
Mr Hayden leaves for his three-week trip on Monday.
Fairfield School principal Andrew Larson also received a fellowship, and used it earlier this year to study schools in Canada, Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States.
