Nau mai haere mai, talofa lava and warm greetings parents and caregivers

This week is national boarding week and you can watch this delightful video filmed and produced by our Acland House students. They are a great group of girls who grow very close as a boarding family during their time at Acland. I was fortunate last week to be invited to a welcome dinner at Acland House with the girls and staff and enjoyed fabulous food and a warm and relaxed atmosphere. Head Chef Craig Redmile and his kitchen staff can be proud of delivering a menu worthy of a top restaurant. 

We are very fortunate to have a thriving boarding hostel at Acland House, a very warm and inviting atmosphere, staff who care about the students and take very good care of them and a happy place which the girls can call home during term time.

It is no mean feat taking the role of 24/7 care of 120 girls on and I want to congratulate and thank all the staff at Acland but, in particular, Ms Dee Guillemot-Rodgerson, Director of Boarding. Dee (or Gillie as the girls call her) does an amazing job with great commitment. This is reflected in parent and student feedback surveys which show high levels of satisfaction in regards to all facets of boarding life. We are also fortunate that Dee brings her very significant experience as the ongoing Head of the New Zealand Boarding Association to her role.

This week the boarding students led by Alice Ridgen spoke to staff about boarding and ran quizzes with the ako groups to raise awareness around boarding life and they did a brilliant job. Boarding students number around 110 so are representative of a sizeable portion of our school roll. You may see them walking in “crocodile” to and from school.

Well done and thank you to all the staff at the hostel and to the Acland girls who are a pleasure to look after there.

Ngā mihi nui

Christine O’Neill