Kia ora, e te whānau

We have had the nicest last few weeks with our senior students. The Pasifka students’ farewell, the poroporoaki and the International students’ farewells were lovely events and these students all had some special moments with whānau and staff as they finished their time at WGC.

The Yr 13s were keen to do something nice for their last days, so we saw a wonderful array of themes throughout the week - uniform; anything but a bag; 1st day of Yr 1; what I want to be in 10 years time and finally uniform from another school.

And then there was a carnival day on Friday, their last day at school. Mr Whippy; games on the turf; a commemorative panel on the fence outside the demo site; chalk on the quad; music and laughter will be my enduring memories of the Class of 2023. I am so grateful that they embraced the idea of leaving well and have left a legacy other year groups can develop in the years to come.

The final assemblies, the Sports and Cultural awards and Prizegiving are now behind us. What lovely events these have all been. The awards have been presented, speeches have been delivered, tears have been shed, now everyone settles down for exams and a solid few weeks of work. We wish them all well.

And through all of this, the crane has arrived and the demolition of Tower has started. The noise and the vibrations are reasonable at present but we’re aware they’re working on the higher levels, so we’ll just wait and see if Pipitea needs to be emptied this year - with the NCEA exams off site we have a Plan B we can move to easily. They are making steady progress as you’ll see in the photos below. The aim is to remove a floor every 15 days. Fingers crossed…

Thank you to everyone who came to Prizegiving and supported the students. We were pleased with how things ran, but we have complained to the MFC about them not letting parents in before 6.30 - we have no idea why they decided to do that and it certainly wasn't on our instructions. We pay for the building for the whole day, so we expect to have access all day…

If you do need to meet with any staff over the next five weeks, please email to make a time. Lots of staff are needed each day on the VUW campuses to support the students getting to the right rooms, so we definitely won’t have all the staff here at all times.

Ngā manaakitanga

Julia