There have been some outstanding achievements by students recently covering the entire spectrum from the performing arts, to academia, to music. I was very proud to be able to support our Jazz Musicians at Southern Jam and enjoyed their success. 

The performing arts have faced challenges after losing the Hall, and much credit is due to the boys and staff involved who have kept up the enthusiasm and level of performance without a base. The opening of the Hall at School and the Performing Arts Centre at Christchurch Girls' High School will be a moment of celebration for our performing arts students and I hope provides further impetus for more boys to become involved as we improve our ability to showcase the performing arts to the students.

With the Hall project moving into an operational construction phase our design focus moves to our classrooms. We have engaged Hayball and Stephenson Turner to help us determine a brief for our classroom design and we have also been fortunate to visit the CDHB’s Design Lab. The principles by which our classrooms are designed will be our own, and we will seek community and student input into the development of our brief. The video above about Education 3.0 is produced by Mark Osborne of CORE Education who will engage with staff as we consider what our design principles will be. 

Good luck to the 1st XV on Saturday as they compete in the South Island Rugby final. I have spoken with the boys in assembly this week about humility and used this video of Eliza McArtney as an example.

Altiora Peto