Kia ora parents, caregivers and whānau

A very warm welcome back to school for 2021. I hope you all had lovely, restful holiday breaks and had the chance to enjoy the backyard of this beautiful land. This year will again be interesting and challenging, as we continue to work through the COVID pandemic and all it may bring. We know we have the resilience and skills to manage as we did last year by working together as a community.

This week we welcomed staff and students back to school for Year 9 and new student orientation and course confirmation for Years 10-13. Today, Friday 5 February we had a Teacher Only Day, focused on the implementation of a new restorative relationship/behaviour management framework for the school. I will write more on this in subsequent newsletters.

On Tuesday, 9 February, we will hold our start of year pōwhiri and formally welcome all new students and staff to the school. This will include a formal hand over of our new Assistant Principal, Ms Maria Lemalie, from Shirley Boys’ High School to Christchurch Girls’ High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora. Guests from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Pacific Peoples will be in attendance. Classes begin for the week after the pōwhiri and morning tea.

We welcome our new staff for 2021

• Our new Assistant Principal, Ms Maria Lemalie, who will also become part of the Languages Faculty.
• In Science we welcome Ms Rachel Cleeve and Ms Megan Laas who will be teaching Science and Chemistry
• Mr Jeremy Brocklehurst is joining the Mathematics Department as the new HOD of Junior Mathematics
• The Health and PE Learning Area is welcoming Ms Rachel Keyse
• Ms Simone Malcom will be joining both the Commerce and Mathematics Departments
• Welcome back Mrs Jolene Bowman to Technology after her year of maternity leave

Your young people did amazingly well in NCEA, given the hurdles of lockdown and alert levels. First results from NZQA sit at (with 2019 in brackets):

• NCEA L1 91.7 (91.8)
• NCEA L2 97.7 (99.6)
• NCEA L3 94.4 (92.2)
• UE 85.6 (82.9)

These are much higher than the national and decile 9 averages. Thank you, to you and to the staff, for supporting our students to achieve at this level during challenging times.

This is an exciting year. In 2020 we created a vision and laid the foundation for the beginning of change. This year we will be planning some real change for 2022, particularly focusing on our junior learning framework, our timetable, and assessment and reporting for juniors.

Our rebuild is confirmed with master planning beginning this term. It is wonderful for the school to have certainty and the opportunity to rebuild a large proportion of the campus. Only the Performing Arts Centre, the gymnasium complex and E block (Visual Arts next to the gymnasium) will ultimately remain. This will enable us to work creatively with our small but beautiful site. There will be minimal disruption to students, as learning will continue in current buildings, followed by progressive moves to completed new buildings.

All in all there is much to look forward to!

The weather forecast looks good for Waitangi weekend. This weekend is another opportunity to spend time with family and to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the foundation of our nation. We are fortunate to live in a peaceful land, but this is not to say that there is not still much work to do around equity and biculturalism in this country. The example of a land forged in war and slavery and still riven by racial divide and inequity has been more than apparent in USA news. New Zealand Aotearoa was also forged in the land wars and eviction of Māori from their land. Let us hope we can continue a peaceful evolution of honouring all that the Treaty means.

Ngā mihi

Christine O’Neill