Winter sports is currently closing off with many grade finals taking place. It is a busy time but great to see how well our students are doing and the wide participation in sports at the school.

On Wednesday our 1st XV took out the Christchurch secondary schools girls’ rugby competition, winning the Miles Toyota Cup. The game against Avonside Girls’ High was a good on-field tussle with a score of 69 to 17. Upcoming A finals are being played by hockey (tonight against St Margaret’s at 6.10pm at Nga Puna Wai) with football and netball Supernet finals next week. I extend a huge thank you to all the coaches and managers across all the grades in all sports and all the parents providing transport and sideline support.

Year 10 – 13 subject selections are currently open and Year 9 selections will go out to prospective parents and students next week. Please make sure you return your daughter’s selections by the due date as we will be heavily into staffing and class planning for next year over the next few weeks. Similarly, if you have an in zone daughter to enrol for 2023 or have family or friends in that situation, please submit in zone enrolments urgently if you are certain of your enrolment and encourage those you know to do so as well. While you are able to enrol in zone at any time, it makes planning staffing for 2023 very difficult if we can’t get a comprehensive handle on the potential roll.

Thank you to all the parents who turned out in numbers to the Pasifika and whānau hui. Our next Muslim parent hui is planned for Thursday 29 September at 3.30pm. While the numbers at our PTA parent hui this term were small we had a great discussion and information evening. I encourage all parents to come along when the opportunity is there. Lipsync is on at 7pm next Thursday at the CBHS auditorium and parents are invited. We will advise Year 9 parents of the date for the Term 4 social evening shortly. It is lovely to have everything back up and running again but certainly makes for a busy life!

As a final note, I encourage you to participate in our Board of Trustees parent/caregiver election which is currently open and closes on 07 September. We have seven candidates standing so make sure you read their profiles and cast your vote. You will find further information on the election in this newsletter. Our current Board meets for the final time at the end of this month. Our Board Chair Lesley Vehekite and Deputy Chair David King are standing again, but our other parent elected representatives are standing down after six year terms. I want to thank Julian Bowden, Sally Nicholas, Brian Northern and Rodney Booth for their service to the school and wish them the best for the future. The current Board has been excellent to work with and I have appreciated their strong governance, broad vision, commitment to the best interests of our students and willingness to step into some brave spaces.

Ngā mihi