We are now over half way through the 2nd term of this year and there is heaps going on with our students excelling in multiple areas across the school.

On the 17th of May we had Riley Craig who won best use of electronic equipment in the Smokefree Rockquest regionals and a combined GHS and Timaru Boys band “24 more rows” with Clyde Molina, Charlie Drysdale, Thomas Bain and Charlie Hoogeveen getting third.

On that same day William Kaufman came in first in the GoChess Timaru/Oamaru Regionals in Oamaru.

At the South Island Cross Country nationals we had a number of students participating with Charlotte Walker 1st in the AWD Year 8 Girls. Billy Nelson coming a close second in the Year 9 boys. Isaac Johnston 2nd Year 7 Boys. Justina Courage 3rd in the Year 8 girls. Ben Drudi and Anthony Baker came 2nd in the U16 boys team event.

Oliver McKeown and Matteo Kimura have recently gained their caps for the Roncalli Aoraki combined team.

Over King’s birthday weekend a Geraldine team participated in the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare competition. They did incredibly well gaining a standing ovation from the judges.

GCNZ National UOSWSF 2024 Awards:

* Best Communication with the Audience Award, donated by Christopher Finlayson in memory of Peter Martyn (Money Prize)

* Outstanding Student Direction Award, donated by (the late) Fiona King and Speech NZ (Money Prize and Trophy)

There were 38 out of the 49 performances that were student directed - Ella and Imma 1st out of 38 other school directed scenes.

* National SGCNZ Schools award

* Ella Waldron - Outstanding Performer Award, donated by Peter Vere-Jones - Book prize (top performer of the festival)

Ella and Imma have been selected to perform in the national competition in Dunedin later this year.

Congrats to Ella, Imma, Kohl and Sper!!!

This weekend we also had two students representing South Canterbury in the under 16 development team in a South Island tournament in Netball. Well done Millie Chapman and Maddi Cooper.

We have a bunch of teams playing sport this winter with Hockey, Netball, Basketball, Soccer and Rugby being the most popular. I love watching Geraldine High School students competing on the sports field so let me know if there is a game coming up that you would be keen for me to have a look at and I will do my best to make it.

For the most part I have been really impressed as I walk around the classes and sit in on lessons to see how the learning is going. 98% of our students are making the most of the learning opportunities and contributing positively to the class environment. Living our school values of respect, achievement, relationships and responsibility.

We as teachers have a number of strategies and teaching practices that we use to set up a safe learning environment conducive to learning. Every student has the right to learn without interruption and every teacher has the right to teach in a respectful, productive environment.

There are a small amount that make this more challenging and will need to be managed through our behaviour management system to help them take responsibility for their learning and respecting the learning space of others.

Our teachers will try the least intrusive strategies to keep students engaged and on task, redirection, proximity, correction, positive reinforcement etc but if this is not successful the last resort is to withdraw a student from the classroom.

This is not something we want to do, or take lightly, but sometimes it is necessary for the greater good. For most students this will never happen and for a small few will only happen once. For small percentage this might happen on more than one occasion. This is not okay and we will be tightening up in this area with an escalation of consequences (please refer to the article on "Steps in the Behaviour Management Plan").

Currently we have students participating in the NZ fencing finals at the Field Days in mystery creek. They have done outstandingly well gaining 2nd and 3rd. Well done team and a huge shout out to Sarah Foley-Smith for all her work and vision to get these students into this position.

Finally rehearsals for the school production of Grease are ramping up with tickets on sale now. Be quick as these tickets are selling fast with this production promising to be the highlight of the theatre season.

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