As we race towards the end of another term - less than three weeks to go as I write this! - it’s a good time to pause and reflect on our achievements. 

The Year 7 and 8 Speech Competition in July was a resounding success. Indie Kee was a well-deserved winner and the Year 9-13s got a chance to see her competition winning speech for themselves at our assembly last Monday. Well done Indie! 

The speech competition for Year 9-13s is scheduled to take place at the end of Week 2 in Term 4, just before the seniors go on study leave, so they are now beginning their preparations in earnest. Hopefully, as things finally get back to normal, there will be no more disruptions to derail this. 

Recently, the Year 7 and 8s had fun writing their own Dr Seuss stories while one group of Year 9s and 10s studied murder mysteries. They even competed against each other in a digital ‘Escape Room’ based on the Sherlock Holmes short story: ‘The Blue Carbuncle’. Juliet Clare, Ava Eddy and Ashley Howard were the winners of the chocolate prize on the day!

 When they haven’t been planning their outfits for the formal, the senior students have been practising and planning for the upcoming school exams in Week 9. Based on these results, the students should be able to identify their areas of strength and weakness in English and begin putting together their targeted revision plans. We are still awaiting more information on the much talked about new NCEA literacy and numeracy standards which will arrive in 2024. 

There has been lots of planning behind the scenes to ensure our students will be ready for these and we hope to be able to share information on this, as well as give suggestions as to how parents and caregivers can help with the preparations. Part of these preparations included a visit from the new Assistant Principal of St Kevin's College in Oamaru, Carl Herbst, who took us through an exciting new digital writing tool called ‘The Writer’s Toolbox’. We hope to subscribe to this soon as part of our BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Initiative starting in 2023. Mr Cooper will keep you updated with developments as soon as we have more information.