Kia ora koutou katoa

This week we celebrated our first full school Mass of the year at St Patrick’s church. It was a special time to celebrate our school community and the commissioning of our student leadership team of 2023. Thanks Fr Mathew and to the parents who could attend, your presence made it all the more special. We will work on our singing this year!

On Wednesday at assembly, we were joined by Senior Constable Terri Middleton and personal trainers Marty and Lisa, to outline Bluelight Bootcamp that starts next Wednesday 15 February. We are the only school on the Coast to have this whole school opportunity and it is a considerable extension of the Bluelight programme that has been run here since 2014. We are building our Hauora and Wellbeing programme around the Te Whare Tapa Wha model, focused on physical, mental, social, and spiritual wellbeing, supported by a foundation of strong home-school partnerships. Research shows that exercise improves all outcomes for young people, building their strength, resilience, and focus later in the day. You’ll see some preliminary survey results in this newsletter with our students excited about this opportunity. Students need to come to school in their sports gear ready to train. Year 10, 11, 12 students will need to change into their uniforms after as they are off to the Westland Careers Expo. We are looking for sponsorship of boxing gloves and pads, and fruit for after training. If you or anyone you know would be interested in making a donation, please get in touch office@johnpaul.ac.nz

You will also read about our (preliminary) 2022 NCEA results in this newsletter. Once again JPII students lead their peers nationally in decile six schools and across the West Coast. Congratulations to staff and students for these fine results despite three challenging covid years causing significant disruption to teaching and learning.

Covid is rearing its ugly head in West Coast schools again. So far, we haven’t had any cases (and long may this continue!) We do ask for you all to please be vigilant and stay home if you are feeling unwell and test. Health advice if you test positive for covid-19 can be found here:

If you have COVID-19 | Unite against COVID-19 (covid19.govt.nz).

 Remember, your household contacts do not need to isolate. They should test daily for 5 days. If they test positive, they need to begin 7 days of isolation as someone with COVID-19.

Finally, a big thank you to all our parents and families for how smart our students are looking in their uniforms. It was great to see our boys including years 9-13 having a kick around at lunchtime. Thanks to Sports Captain, Alex Stone, for his leadership in getting the game going! Students will need to wear a t-shirt for their rugby and touch games at lunchtime. There are many missing buttons and a number of young men who will need to learn to sew buttons on their shirts this weekend!

Ngā mihi nui,

Renée Hutchinson

Principal