From The Principal's Desk

Mr Scott Thelning —

Kia ora ki te whanau o te Cathedral Grammar School.

We are proud to announce The Cathedral Grammar Junior School building was recognised at the New Zealand Architecture Awards last week, winning the 2018 Ted McCoy Award in the Education Architecture category. This is the highest architectural honour for learning environments in New Zealand. 

The Junior School building, designed by Andrew Barrie Lab and Tezuka Architects, has won many awards, but nothing as prestigious as this. The awards jury said The Cathedral Grammar Junior School is “a lovely, humane learning environment that captures the joy of childhood”. "The goal was that the building would be characterised by both the warmth of the timber and by the dynamic and rhythmic form of the structure”. - Andrew Barrie Lab

The Cathedral Grammar Junior School Award was also featured on Newshub and can be viewed by clicking on the link below.
www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/11/the-playground-slide-tree-house-and-tunnel-that-won-at-the-2018-nz-architecture-awards.html

As I have mentioned in previous editions of Grammar Notes, please ensure you have all of the key dates and times for the multiple events on our calendar between now and the end of the school year. You can find these on the school app and detailed in the left-hand menu of this edition.

In alignment with our vision focused on every child every day, and our 'heart as well as head' philosophy, we are subtly but importantly, making some adaptations to Prize Giving this year. Firstly, our Yr 8 leavers will be our guests on stage instead of Staff and the Board. We will process in with them, but they will be the ones on stage throughout the event. Secondly, we will communicate with individual families if their child(ren) is/are going to receive a prize, but we will not be announcing the prize winners prior to the event. We would like this to be a surprise for the students,  and will be asking parents not share this with their child(ren). Thirdly, all students will sit together as a class group with their teacher, not separated based on prize winners and non-prize winners. We believe these adaptations place the students at the centre of our decision making, aligned to our values and provides a meaningful whole school community event. We look forward to seeing you all there on December 14.

Congratulations to all of our Pre-School to Yr 8 students for a wonderful Athletics Day which was held two weeks ago. It was great to see such energy, determination and effort going into individual, team and House performances. Thank you to parents who were able to come along and support the event. After two false starts, we ended up with a perfect day. From this event, we had a group of students represent Grammar proudly at the Independent Schools event.  It was great, among other achievements, to see us win the 4 x 100m  Yr 8 boys relay.  From that,  we have 10 students who have made it through to the Canterbury Primary Schools' event! I wish them all the very best for December 5.

Our Yr 7 creative talent was on display yesterday through their Wearable Art Show. Yet again, another wonderful event enabling our students to showcase their abilities, skills and flair to their peers and parents. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am eagerly looking forward to the Ensemble Evening tonight. 

We have had a number of new students visit our school over the past few weeks,  and I very much appreciate the wonderful way many of you have welcomed and engaged with these families. We have at least 35 new students starting Cathedral Grammar on day one next year, and I value all you do in ensuring they are supported and nurtured into our school community. We do it well and I value it greatly.

Have a fabulous fortnight.

Nga mihi,

Scott Thelning