Kia ora ki te whanau o Cathderal Grammar School

The signs of Spring are in the air. We have daffodils coming to life in our gardens and Cathedral Grammar is a busy hive of energy, fun, focus and achievement.

Just a quick note to remind you that our school is open as per normal tomorrow. The teacher strike does not impact us at all.

Over recent weeks I have met with and taken on a tour of our school 12 prospective families. We are experiencing a very good conversion rate with many of these families already enrolled and others signalling strong interest and likely to enroll. Some are securing spots for 2020. These families, who tend to visit a number of schools, are providing great feedback to us as to the key attributes of Cathedral Grammar. Key themes tend to be:

• the positive, calm and friendly people and relationships
• connection to our 10 year aspirations and vision, especially our focus on nurturing, knowing and growing every child every day, our heart as well as head philosophy and focus on the whole child and their well-being
  
• focus on Christian values
• academic foundation of English and maths at the core of our programmes
• sense of tradition with an eye on what students will need for their future
• unique structure with co-ed and single gender classes
• small focused classes - attention to/for their child
• our growth and open mindset
• specialist teachers
• specialist spaces/rooms
• leadership opportunities
• extra curricular opportunities

It is easy to get caught up in the busy hustle and bustle of daily life and forget what we can be grateful for, and sometimes it is a blessing to stop, step back and take stock of what others are saying. I am proud to be a part of our school and are very appreciative of all those who join in turning the many cogs that make this great place provide what it does for our community. 

Many of these new families came to have a look at our school due to positive word of mouth and referrals from parents. As we know, it takes a village to grow a child and we appreciate this very much. On that note, we have our next Open Day on August 28 - please spread the word to those who you consider may be interested in attending. They can, of course, come for a visit any time.

Do you 'follow' and 'like' our school on Facebook? If you are on Facebook and you don't, please do and if you are considering signing up to Facebook,  following our school is a good reason to! We have lifted our game with Facebook and now have regular posts which by in large are celebrating your children, as well as school achievements and informing you of upcoming events. Regular users may have noticed an improvement in the quality of the presentation of our posts.  We have 640 people who have liked our page - let's get it to 1000!

Andrea (my wife) and I enjoyed the Dine and Unwind fundraiser for the choristers' impending trip to Australia and Japan. Phil Gifford was a great speaker with many funny stories to tell. Many thanks to those who joined in the festivities and supported this event, and congratulations to the parent body who organised it so well.

Many thanks also to the families who billeted our friends from St Mark's Church School, Wellington, last week. This is an important exchange for us and we very much appreciated all of the warm hospitality you showed our guests. They were overwhelmed with how they were treated while they were here and thoroughly enjoyed our school and their time with us. The St Mark's chapel choir joined ours for two chapel services, and they both performed beautifully together at Evensong at The Cathedral on Thursday evening. On the sports court/turf netball was one win each, with St Mark's taking out the hockey 2-1. Many thanks to Mr Bertie, Mrs Lowe and Miss Dowgray for all of their organisation in making this happen.

St Mark's is very similar to us - an Anglican school, Pre-School to Year 8 with an almost identical school roll. I understand that this has been a one way exchange and we are motivated to change this next year! They are very keen to host us and we wish to make it happen. We will keep you informed as we progress this. 

Forums - due to unforeseen circumstances that have arisen, we are postponing the E-Learning and Positive Education and Well-Being forums until Term 4. We still wish to seek your ideas regarding what you wish to be covered in the e-learning forum, please do so at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/elearningparentforum