Principal's Message

It has been a very full week with many end of year events, the finish of senior school and the Ministry of Education confirmation of our rebuild. We were delighted that last Saturday our Year 13 Leavers’ Function was able to proceed under COVID Level 1 and students, parents and staff had an enjoyable time together celebrating the end of their time at school for our Year 13 students. Thank you to Miss O’Rourke our Year 13 Dean for her hard work organising the event at the Wigram Air Force Museum.

On Wednesday night we celebrated the achievement of our senior students at the annual Senior Prizegiving in the Christchurch Boys’ High School Auditorium. Congratulations to all award recipients, in particular our top Maori and Pasifika awards - Katarina Cox-Winiata, Taiana Tu’akalau and Beth Feller, and our three premier academic awards, Proxime Accessit - Jess Cotton and our two Duces - Ruby Lange and Jean Yu Lim. To achieve at this level takes talent, commitment, and a huge work ethic.

We also announced our prefects for 2021. Congratulations to Amiria Tikao (Head Prefect), Roseanne Tia and Kate Hastings (Deputy Head Prefects) and Mia Cochrane (Acland Head Prefect) who will lead the prefect team. I look forward to working with them to support the student body in what is going to be an exciting year. Thank you to Isla Clarkson (2020 Head Prefect) and her team for the superb work leading in a COVID year.

The Prizegiving is always a very large event to coordinate and organise so a thank you to Mr Sawyer, Mr Burney, Mrs Bailey and Mrs Peawini for delivering a seamless and enjoyable occasion and to our kapa haka group and Mrs Huia, the choir ‘Cantrices’ and Miss Tinworth and Miss Morrison, and to the orchestra and Mr Langdon for exceptional performances on the night. It was also noteworthy that we presented a kapa haka in our own right for the first time at the Canterbury kapa haka competition in the weekend at the Town Hall. This is great to see and I acknowledge the work of Mrs Huia leading our Maori students in supporting their culture, language and achievement.

Last night Acland House had their Year 13 leaving dinner at Rossendale Vineyard. It was lovely seeing all the Acland parents and students having so much fun together and farewelling the Year 13 boarders from the Acland family. The Acland culture is very strong so students never really leave, and stay distinctly connected to Acland for their lives. Mrs Guillemot-Rogerson is a superb Boarding Director and I want to thank her and her fantastic team who provide the girls with great care, a great environment and great food.

To top all this off we met with the Ministry of Education this week and have confirmation that the Main Block and Technology Block will be replaced with new builds. The E/Art Block will be completely refurbished. We have been in regular contact with the Ministry through this process and fully support this solution. New buildings will deliver us the best long-term facilities and minimise disruption to teaching and learning. There will be significant planning and design work that needs to take place before we get to the construction phase. We will be working with the Ministry in the new year to identify a design team for the project and we will work closely with both them and the Ministry to ensure we deliver the best possible outcome for our school and community. Our current timeframes indicate the design will take up to 18 months and construction is likely to start late 2022.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Ngā mihi nui

Christine O’Neill