Nau mai haere mai!

Welcome back to East Otago High School for Term 4. I hope that you all had a great break and also a relaxing labour weekend. This is a short term with the last day for students being December the 8th where we will have our school Prize-giving in the evening. 

Senior students will be leaving next Wednesday to go on study leave for external NCEA examinations.There is still however plenty of work for our senior students to complete in the coming weeks with a mop up of internal standards in class, external courses to be completed to ensure that they have the best chance at gaining each NCEA level certificate. Senior students are welcome to study at school (in full school uniform). They do need to ensure that they are mindful of other classes running during this time.

Our Year 13 students are busy applying for University, Polytechnic, halls of residences or finding full time employment for next year. We will be running a Year 13 assembly next week to reflect upon their 7 year journey at EOHS from Year 7-13. This will be a highly emotional time for some of these students as the anticipation and anxiety of taking the next step in life dawns on them.

This Friday we will be celebrating our two Mana Pounamu award recipients at a ceremony in Dunedin. Congratulations to Rylie Keach and Maia Perry who are this years Senior and Junior recipients respectively. They have been great Maori role models this year, and in previous years. We look forward to being a part of this prestigious event. If you would like to attend it is on from 5.15pm, University of Otago, College of Education Auditorium, 145 Union Street East University of Otago.

This week we had a number of students participating in a course at the Waihemo Board rooms. This course provided students with 19 NCEA credits to supplement the courses we offer at school. The feedback from the presenter was extremely positive who was impressed with the engagement, manners and positive attitude of our students. It is great getting this type of feedback as it reinforces to me how lucky we are to have such inclusive students that put their best foot forward in such circumstances.

Progress is happening on the refurbishment of B Block windows and doors as well as the replacement of the roof on C Block. This is causing major disruption to our staff and students but they are handling this well with patience and understanding. The end result will be a far superior learning environment for all.

Although the year is drawing to a close quite quickly there are still a lot of learning, sporting and EOTC opportunities to get through to keep our students occupied. Year 9-13 speech competitions, Junior sports week, Rite Journey camps, Year 6 transition day, Polytechnic taster days for Year 9/10 students, Peer Support training, interviews for Head Students 2023 and the annual fun day.

Finally I would like to wish all the students participating in the Otago Secondary Schools Athletics competition this weekend all the best. We will be down at the Caledonian cheering them all on!

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper

Principal/Tumuaki

East Otago High School