Tēnā koutou katoa, nau mai haere mai whakatau mai

Nau mai haere mai ki te kura o Katikati

Tae atu ki a koutou

Ngā taonga o tēnei kura.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.

Nō reira, nau mai, whakatau mai nei.

Welcome to Katikati College for 2022.

A warm welcome to all our new students, their whānau and our new staff. I hope that you have felt welcomed into your new school and place of work.

It is not quite the way I had hoped that we would start the year, asking our senior students to stay at home and engage with distance learning and having to make quick decisions around COVID within our community. I continue to be proud of how adaptable our young people are and their resilience in these times of change. Thank you for the work of our staff to keep our students engaged in their learning. l would also like to thank our community for the support you have shown your school.

Even in these disrupted times, we have managed to start the year with some key events. I was honoured to welcome our new Year 7 students with a powhiri to our school. It was then a pleasure to be welcomed as the new principal. Year 13s were able to have an amazing camp in the Coromandel. This has helped strengthen the relationships between these students and the key staff who will be involved in supporting them in their last year at school. Our competitive swimmers were able to show their abilities in the pool. Congratulations to all who took part and the newly won champions and those who broke records.

At the start of the year, l spoke to our staff about what they could expect from me as the leader of the school and what l plan to achieve. l shared my love of this community and how proud I have been to be a part of it for the past 19 years. I spoke about the high expectations that I have of myself and how important relationships are to me. Most importantly l emphasised that I want our students and staff to be proud of attending and working at Katikati College. Our focus moving forward is to further develop quality teaching and learning in all of our classrooms.

Finally, I would like to congratulate the four Year 13 students who have been selected to represent New Zealand in the U20 ultimate frisbee team.

Ayrton Hodson, Daniel Nicholson, Sean Nicholson and Luke Spurr

Also congratulations to Mr Peter Besley who has encouraged and coached these young men for a number of years.

I look forward to the time when we are in a position to welcome our families back into school and all school events. Please take the time to connect with your child's teachers. I strongly believe that if home and school are working together, we will see even better outcomes for our young people.