Nau mai haere mai and warm greetings to all families and whanau

I am aware the school and community has gone through a lot of turmoil since the earthquake around the rebuild.  We are pleased to advise that Christchurch Girls’ High School - Te Kura o Hine Waiora, our Board and the Ministry of Education have been working together to determine the best way to restart construction work on the school’s Main Block.

Earlier this year, consultancy firm KPMG were engaged to come up with a long list of options for how the project could be restarted. This list has since been narrowed down to four, which are now being closely analysed before a final decision is made.

The School, Board and Ministry are considering a number of factors during the decision-making process, including how the potential solutions fit with the School’s vision for teaching and learning; the timeframes for the work; cost; disruption to school operations; whether the solution fits with the existing school environment and demonstrates good design principles.

This is a co-operative, collaborative process, which requires in-depth investigation and due diligence.  All parties are committed to ensuring the best result for the school and its community, and are working towards confirming a final decision by the end of the 2019 school year.

We are excited by the progress we have made in this process and look forward to making an announcement in due course.

Today I complete one term at the school and I am very happy to be here.  We have a wonderful staff and group of students and will be celebrating them today at our longer than usual assembly.  A focus next year will be building an assembly into every week to grow connectedness and a sense of family in our students and to acknowledge all the diverse activities that go on in the school.  We are hoping that these assemblies are both enjoyable and fun and involve a high degree of student ownership.  They will also provide us the opportunity to put strong and influential female guest speakers in front of our student body.

I hope you all enjoy the holiday period with your young people and encourage seniors, in particular, to focus on relaxation and other activities and not solely on study.  Life needs to be rounded.

Ngā mihi nui

Christine O’Neill

Principal