Nau mai haere mai!

This week has seen our Year 9/10 students participating in a variety of sports against a number of schools in Dunedin. What a great opportunity for our students to mix and mingle with other students their age and just reward after their examinations held last Friday. 

Our Year 9/10 students completed their end of Year examinations on Friday. These examinations covered reading, writing and numeracy and the early indications from staff supervising these was that the students were engaged and gave it their best effort. The results will inform our staff on how best to meet their learning needs in 2023 while giving the students examination experience and an indication of where they are at in their learning.

ERO (Education Review Office) have just completed their school visits for this year. This has been a positive collaboration between the school and ERO to deep dive into our schools systems, processes, teaching and learning as well as compliance. I relish the opportunity to review and evaluate what we do as a school so that we can improve outcomes for students. In the new year a school profile of how the school is performing and the strategic direction we are heading will be available on the ERO website.

A reminder that in the next week and a bit we have some interruptions to our school calendar. Consecutive Fridays (25th of November and 2nd of December) the school will not be open for the students as these are the allocated NCEA Teacher Accord Days. Monday the 28th of November the school will be closing at 12.30pm for the PUM (Paid Union Meeting) for secondary teachers. We will have staff onsite to supervise students that can not go home and an alternative programme will be run for them. The buses will be running the normal times on those days.

Next week our Year 10 students will be participating in their Rite Journey camps. The girls are off to Wanaka while the boys are heading into the Silver Peaks forest for a three day tramping and camping experience.

Next Friday a group of students will be heading to Puketeraki Marae to assist in some Harakeke preparation and other associated community service. It is great that so many students volunteer their time to connect with the local Runuka. 

The final week of school is just over a week away. The highly anticipated Prize-giving ceremony will be held on the 8th of December in the DG Murray hall at 6.30pm. Our guest speaker this year is the Mayor of Waitaki, Mr Gary Kircher. This is always a great experience as we celebrate the successes of our students over the year. I look forward to seeing as many students, family members and friends as we can get at this special occasion.

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper

Tumuaki/Principal

East Otago High School