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Mr Phil Holstein
 
Photo by Burnside High School

Principal's Term 2 Report

Phil Holstein —

Kia ora whānau This newsletter highlights a range of activities from a busy and successful Term 2.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Congratulations and welcome to all the elected Parent Representatives on the Board of Trustees: Charles Breurkes (Chairperson), James McNeill (Deputy Chairperson) and Andrea Loubser were re-elected, while Chris Dann and Tracy Scott are new members who bring a great deal of experience with them. Congratulations to Murray Paull who is the newly elected Staff Representative. E Wen Wong (12WTAW) continues as Student Trustee.

I am delighted that Brent Crammond has been co-opted as a board member, as he provides continuity and has invaluable skills and experience in property and personnel matters. Burnside High School is fortunate to have the service of such high calibre people, and I am looking forward to working with them.

STAFF UPDATE

This term we welcomed a number of new staff:

Ms Jan Alabaster to a permanent, full-time position in Mathematics (Jan has taught at BHS before)

Mr Antony Crowther to a fixed term, full-time position in Science

Ms Lusinda Gomes-Sebastiao to a full-time, maternity leave teaching position in English, to cover Ms Erin Ryder’s classes

Ms Janine Lattimore and Ms Lisa de Visser are new part-time Learning Assistants based in the Learning Centre

Ms Eleni Ioannou to a fixed term, part-time position as a teacher of Social Sciences

Ms Katie Tran as a permanent, part-time teacher of Technology

In Term 3 we welcome Ms Lelia Evans as an ESOL teacher, Mr Robin Grundy to Science, and Ms Toni Maddaford to a permanent, full-time position as teacher of Technology

We farewelled and gave our best wishes to Ms Alisha Muir and Mr Cameron Poole Smith (Social Sciences teachers) who gained positions at GEMS International School in Dubai. They were replaced by Mr Brogan Gibson and Mr Guy Pickering who are both well-known around the school through previous roles.

We acknowledged and bid farewell to Mr Sam Leary (DVC and Hard Materials Technology) to take up his new position at Christs College. We thank him for his service and contribution to BHS over the last four years and wish him well.

We wish Mr George Gerve and Mr Geoff Knight all the best for their periods of leave in Term 3.

BUILDINGS UPDATE

Aurora Performing Arts Centre: The main work to repair and refurbish the exterior of the building has been finished. We are currently working with our fire engineers and the Christchurch City Council to determine the nature and extent of the work required in order to comply with new fire regulations.

Repair and Refurbishment of the Hunter and Cross Gymnasiums is now completed, with staff and students enjoying the new look spaces. The total cost of this project was around $2 million, funded by the Ministry of Education, and we are delighted with the results

B-Block Toilets Upgrade including gender-neutral facilities. Work is due for completion over the July holiday period. This is a great initiative.

BHS MASTER PLANNING PROCESS

The Ministry of Education, through the Greater Christchurch Schools Rebuild Programme, has given approval for us to commence Master Planning for the redevelopment of our school. We have engaged with architects Baldasso Cortese Nordanus (BCN), who will lead the design of our campus redevelopment, and who have extensive experience with school rebuilds and refurbishments in both New Zealand and Australia. A number of meetings with BCN have occurred already, to look at the vision of the school and complete an inventory of classrooms and uses. The architects and Ministry have also met with representatives from key areas and faculties to discuss their working spaces. These were very productive sessions. Further workshops with the wider staff, groups of students, and whanau, will also be held.

As part of the redevelopment, we will address water-tightness and remaining earthquake-related problems, we will review our site for overall suitability of purpose, and we will plan to refurbish and alter existing learning spaces to align them with our long-term future teaching practices and learning needs. This may allow construction of some new learning spaces. We have initially been allocated $19.1 million to undertake this work which will be completed in stages.

A Concept Plan and Project Brief will be completed during the remainder of this year. They will incorporate factors from the Education Brief, and ideas communicated by staff, students, whānau and stakeholders. We hope to commence detailed design and remediation work early in 2020.

ENROLMENT REVIEW

Burnside High School is one of seven co-educational state secondary schools in the greater Christchurch area proposing new schemes, or proposing amendments to existing schemes.

We propose to extend our enrolment zone geographically, by changing our present home zone boundaries in two phases: the first implemented in 2020, the second from 2022.

School consultations have occurred. Feedback from these meetings resulted in a report prepared by a Ministry of Education Consultant, which was presented to the Board of Trustees for comment. We are now waiting for the MOE to make the final decisions, and will inform our school community when those decisions are announced.

LOCKDOWN REVIEW

The Ministry of Education has engaged KPMG to undertake the review of the citywide lockdown of schools, kura, and early learning services. The steering group includes Christchurch Principal Associations (I am President of the Canterbury West Coast Secondary Principals’ Association (CWCSPA) representatives of the early childhood learning sector, andthe NZ Police. It is important to learn from this event, to make future lockdowns as effective as possible, and to ensure the wellbeing of parents, students and teachers. 

After considering feedback on our own lockdown procedures, we have made some minor changes to ensure a consistent response across the school. A checklist to this effect is now in all classrooms; and a trial lockdown and emergency evacuation, on 6 May, went very smoothly. The trial was for staff and students to become familiar with the requirements of the revised checklist; and to reinforce the message that we follow procedures to remain safe in a lockdown situation.

CO-CURRICULAR LIFE

I have enjoyed attending musical and sporting co-curricular activities this term. Thank you to all the managers, coaches, staff, and parents who help make these opportunities available to our students. To highlight a few of the local, national and international successes:

Show Quest: two groups – Senior Group with 54 students, and Junior Group with 99 students – competed at the Town Hall on 18 and 19 May. Burnside won the Junior Competition and numerous other awards. Both groups won the Tikanga Award for Spirit – which was a wonderful reflection of student character.

Big Sing Regional Gala Concert: at the Town Hall on 7 June, Bel Canto, Aurora Voices, and Quantum Acoustics received a range of awards.

Fifteen students were selected for the 2019 New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Symphony Orchestra, and Liam Johns (Double Bass), Stephen Mosa’ati (Trumpet) and Lewis Grey (Trumpet) were selected for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. This is an outstanding achievement for any high school musician, as the orchestra is open to tertiary students and adults up to the age of 27.

Regional Chamber Music Finals: Sixty groups competed over two days, with four groups from BHS selected for the Canterbury final Concert at The Piano on 14 June. The BHS Brass Quintet won the Woolston Brass Cup for the Most Outstanding Brass Ensemble. The Saxophone Quartet won a KBB award for outstanding wind groups. A Young Man’s Trio (Lily Doak, Emica Taylor and Tetsuya Yamada) and Elallitodva (Ashley Leng, Samantha Chiang and Oscar Chin) were highly commended and selected for the National Contest in Auckland later in the year.

Ara Jazzquest Combos Competition: at the Gala Concert on 21 June, Combo 3 (Juniors) won a Bronze Award, Combo 2 a Gold Award, and Combo 1 won 7 awards, including Best Combo.

Summer Sports Competitions: Burnside High School received cups for the Top Co-educational School in Canterbury in Athletics and Swimming.

Winter Sports Competitions: at the halfway point of the competition many students and teams have featured prominently in Gym Sports, Cross Country (Canterbury and National levels), table tennis, girls and boys football, and badminton (Canterbury champion boys and girls teams), to name a few. We have just been notified that BHS won the award for Top School in Gymnastics, 2019. Our Roll of Honour of New Zealand representatives is growing steadily.

Congratulations to all students who are participating. We wish you well for the local, South Island and New Zealand competitions next term.

Ashburton Winter Sports Exchange: hosted at BHS on 18 June, 15 teams participated in 9 sports. With a final total of 8 wins to 7, the trophy is in the Reception area until next year. Congratulations, and thank you, to our sports coordinators Tracy Taylor and Theresa Smith for their superb organisation.

Future Problem Solving World Scholars Championship: at this international competition, BHS students featured, including William Wray, 11NMSL, who was first in the world in the Middle Division Individual event.

YEAR 12 FORMAL

The Year 12 Winter Garden Formal on 15 June was a great success. Approximately 400 students and partners attended, as well as 25 staff. This was a wonderful occasion and I was extremely proud of the students. There was a general air of energy, fun, friendship and sense of occasion, with everyone presenting themselves in style. The Year 12 Divisional Prefects and Mrs Karen Hunt, Divisional Head for West Division, are to be congratulated for an evening that was a success in every way. Thank-you also to Mrs Veatupu and Mrs Auburn. They all spent many hours organising the theme, decorations, invitations, food, music and photography. Staff of the Addington Events Centre, who host many school formals, were impressed by the behaviour of our students, and I left the Formal confident that our students can conduct themselves appropriately, which reflects positively on them, our school, and our parent body.

2020 ENROLMENTS

The 2020 enrolment round started with Open Night on 14 May. This was a most successful evening with the Aurora Centre full for each of three sessions. As always, it was our student tour guides who did us proud, speaking of their school in a confident, articulate and positive way. The high level of interest in these tours reinforces that Burnside is a successful, sought after school with a positive learning environment and fine reputation in both the local and wider Christchurch Community.

REPORTS

Thank you to the many parents who took the opportunity to talk to your sons’ and daughters’ teachers at the recent Year 11-13 Parent Teacher Conferences. Your interest and input does make a difference. Together with the Senior Reports, students should have a clear focus for the rest of the academic year. At the end of Term 2, Year 9 and 10 students will receive their usual Fortnightly Notes and Year 9 students will also receive a report for their Semester One options. On 2 August all junior school Fortnightly Notes will include an academic progress summary for each subject.

As the busy term draws to a close, and we welcome the July holiday break, I acknowledge the disruptions caused by the teachers’ dispute over their collective employment agreement. I am pleased that a settlement was reached, and ratified by the PPTA. I am heartened that the government has agreed to an accord, in which the Ministry of Education and the teacher unions will work together to implement solutions to the problems our profession faces. For the benefit of our students and our communities, we need the profession of teaching to be valued and recognised, so that good quality people are attracted to it, have manageable workloads, and stay in teaching.

Ngā mihi

Phil Holstein

Principal