Hero photograph
 
Photo by Marcus Cooper

Principal's Comment 3rd of August 2022.

Marcus Cooper —

Nau mai haere mai!

Welcome back to Term 3 which is affectionately termed "The Power Term" for our senior students who should be coming to the end of their internal work, studying for practice examinations, and then preparing for the external examinations in Term 4. 

It has been a difficult start to the term with the school having to close last Wednesday due to flooding closing the road from Dunedin to Palmerston. Unfortunately with so many teachers living in Dunedin we were unnable to safely keep the school open with teachers in front of students. We do not make these decisions lightly with a number of conversations occuring with contributing primary schools, bus companies, BOT presiding member and staff. We nearly always begin with a late start notice for 10am (hoping that the road closures lift) and re-evaluate at 8am. We send out information by email, text, facebook and on our local radio stations to all families. If you did not receive this information please contact the school so we can make sure you are fully informed in these instances.

We have had to sadly accept the resignation of our long time TIC of Art, Leonie Lawrence. Leonie has decided to retire but will be back in the school in 2023 as a relief teacher. We wish her all the best with this next stage in her life. Fortunately we have been able to appoint a very experienced Art teacher, Stephen McAteer. Stephen comes to us after 20 years at Pompalier Catholic College in Whangarei where he was head of the Arts faculty. We warmly welcome Stephen onto our staff and into our community.

Term Three promises to be full on with a number of important events occuring. Monday the 8th of August we host 42 potential students from our contributing schools for our 'Open Day'. This is an amazing opportunity to showcase the great school we have and the advantages of being educated at a small rural school. Open Day will be followed by a parent evening at 6pm. Parents and their students should be at the school library by 6pm for a guided tour of the school.

Extravaganza returns on the evening of the 25th of August. This can be a challenging time for students and staff as anxiety levels rise as we get closer to the performance night, however I am sure this will be a highly entertaining night for all. 

A particular highlight for our senior students will be the school formal on the 9th of September. The Year 13 students have put in a large amount of work to fundraise and plan for this event. 

On the sporting front we have a number of tournaments coming up for Netball, Hockey and Touch. These are a great opportunity for our students to develop their skills and confidence and compete at a high level. I am sure that Mr Herewini is looking forward to the chance of winning the touch competitions at the Koru games in September. We wish all our teams the very best.

Covid continues to play a significant part in how we are operating the school. We have already had 4 staff members this term that have had to isolate. Thank you to all the students that are wearing masks in class. This will hopefully slow the spread of Covid and enable us to maintain normal school operating hours and classes. 

On a positive note we got back some statistics from the ministry of Education about regular attendance. Our school is well above the national average for regular attendance of students. This is in no small part to the work our teachers do in engaging the students in their work and the great opportunities offered. Thank you to all the families for maintaining high attendance levels of their young ones.

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper

Principal/Tumuaki

East Otago High School