Kia ora koutou and welcome back to Term 4 in what is the final term of learning for our year 9 cohort in 2021. Term 4 is always a very important and busy term for Year 9 as academic, leadership and co-curricular opportunities abound. The central focus of Term 4 is the Junior Examinations and end of year assessments across all subjects. These assessments provide a crucial look into the progress made by the cohort across 2021 and set the foundation for success in Year 10.

Term 3 was a disrupted and challenging one for all levels at Cashmere and this has been the same for Year 9 with COVID-19 and online learning dominating the middle of the term. A number of events and co-curricular activities have been disrupted however as Head of School I have been very impressed with how the Year 9 cohort has managed the changes. The majority of the cohort was engaged well with online learning and has returned successfully to school.

Despite all of the cancellations and disruptions to Term 3 there have still been some significant highlights for the cohort.

Music Tour 2021 - The music faculty having had to cancel their significant tour to Northland arranged a 3 day recording tour to Hanmer. There were eighth Year 9 students who were invited to join the senior music students on their tour. These students were Isla Cook, Tom Dewar, Tristan Dunlop, George Gibbs, Sasha Harwood, Amber Hill, Lucy Martin, and Salva Ward.

Lines for Lockdown Poetry - Ngaio Dawson from 9MEB won first place in a poetry competition held during lockdown. Ngaio is a highly creative student who has strengths in both written and visual art forms. It is wonderful to see her talents being recognised on the national stage.

Canterbury U14 Girls Futsal National Champions - Lataya Bojang and Minah van Dam were both members of the U14 Canterbury Girls Futsal side that won the national age group tournament in August prior to lockdown. Both are also member of our Girls 1st XI Football Team which came fourth in their Div 1 Competition this year.

CHS Boys 2nd XI Hockey – The team which contained a significant number of Year 9 Boys won their division final beating Shirley Boys HS. Congratulations to Dominic Carnoutsos, Tom den Hollander, Alistair Derry, Ayrton Edwards, George Gibbs, Logan Limmer, Sam Pincus, Jamie Radford and Kyle Stewart.

iSay Speech Competition – Congratulation to Jonty Higgs for winning the Junior Orator Trophy in the recent iSay Speech competition held by our English Faculty.

The remainder of this Term will be focussed on students pushing themselves for their personal best in the classroom and within the wider school community. To help with this please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need any support for your student in regards to their learning or any other aspect of their schooling.

Nāku iti noa, nā

Tom Wilkinson
Head of School Year 9 2021