Have your say about what you want our college to be like.

Tēnā koutou katoa

As part of our ‘re-visioning’ project, staff, student leaders and our Board of Trustee members spent an afternoon working together to identify what we value about education, what skills and qualities we want our Katikati College learners to have and what culture or learning environment we want our staff and students to experience when they attend our college. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, we have identified that students and staff have slightly different values, with students placing greatest value on Growth, Creativity, Care, Expressiveness/ Joy and Equality, compared to the staff who placed greatest value on Achievement/ Success, Collaboration, Community, Rights/ Respect and Responsibility. 

In summary, student results show they value the learning more than the outcome, as opposed to the staff who valued the outcomes or achievement more. Both staff and students however identified ‘Trust’ as one of their most important values and we will use this as a framework from which to build our culture and vision. We also compared staff and students’ beliefs about learning and discovered they were in 100% agreement with these belief statements:

• I believe that all students can learn.

• I believe that students have an innate desire to learn - to create meaning.

• I believe that regular feedback is vital for teachers, students and parents.

• I believe that student learning can be improved by them developing an awareness of their own learning style and learning processes.

• I believe that students learn best when they experience ownership of their learning.

• I believe that students learn effectively when they integrate experience, imagination, information and application.

• I believe that students can and do learn from each other.

Staff and students also created culture statements to describe the learning environment we want to establish. These culture statements have all been shared in the survey that follows and we ask you to take the time to select the culture statement you most agree with. Click on this link to go to the survey.

Once we decide what we want our school culture to be, we will confirm the vision we have to achieve this and develop a strategic plan to help us realise that vision. This draft strategic plan will then be shared with the community for comment at the end of the year.

Student Engagement and Success

Cole Jackson, 7WIL, was awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the Graeme Dingle Foundation, for his outstanding demonstration of the Kiwi Can value ‘Resilience’. Congratulations Cole.

Our Year 7 and 8 students ran market days over the last two weeks of Term 3. They provided many fabulous examples of product development, marketing and entrepreneurship, sharing their learning and products with our community. The quality of the products and the market day events were testament to the high levels of energy, enthusiasm and talent invested into these learning projects by students and staff. A big thank you to all involved, including all those who came and shopped!

Two state of the art electric Tesla cars, a Model X and a Model S, visited our school along with the Fire Brigade, who completed a demonstration using the jaws of life to cut open a car on Thursday October 19. It was a fabulous day, with many students and staff getting to experience hands on with the jaws of life and driving an electric car. Tesla have also expressed an interest in working with the school to provide solar panels and a charging station. This is possibly a beneficial mutual relationship and we will continue to explore this. Thanks to Anderley Middleton for organising this wonderful day.

Our Pasifika evening was on Thursday October 19 and was a wonderful occasion for our whole community to celebrate our diversity in culture and gain more insight into our Pasifika students and their families’ culture . Many thanks to all those involved, especially our dedicated staff Vetekina Pekipaki and Helen Willacy for organising and supporting our students through their performances.

Our Sports Awards evening was on Wednesday October 18. Our Sports Captains Ben O'Brien and Cara Calway did a great job in supporting our Sports Co-ordinator, Juliet Dunlop-Fraser, in delivering a memorable evening of celebration and success to our community. Our guest speaker was Kelly Hudson, an international hockey referee and she gave a great speech, which was inspiring and motivating for our students. Congratulations to all our prize winners, it is great to see such a wide range of sport practised and mastered at our college. Juliet and I have been talking and we will be making some changes to this evening in 2018. We will be offering you the opportunity in the near future to complete a Sports Award Feedback Survey to help us make some improvements. We thank you for any feedback to further develop this wonderful evening of celebrations.

Our 2018 Student Leader selection is well underway, with students having presented to our Senior Assembly on Wednesday October 18 and then to our staff on October 19. This week candidates will be interviewed by our Senior Leadership Team and 2017 Head Student Team. Successful candidates will be announced at Senior Prizegiving on November 2.

Zach's Coley’s (10AST) Vive project is now complete and I would like to acknowledge and congratulate him for all his work making this happen. It was a huge task for him to undertake and he did it, raising $2,100 on his own and gaining sponsorship of $1,000! Well done Zach. We know you will have many hours of exciting learning ahead.

Acknowledgements and Thanks

TECT Funding

Katikati College has received a $36,242 grant from TECT funding to go towards IT/AV equipment, a security system and electronics. The new security system has already been installed and will be a very useful tool to keep our school environment cared for.

Rita Hillier Photography Scholarship

We have received a $50,000 bequest from Rita Hillier, to be used as a deposit to generate a scholarship of $1,500 per year for a Year 12 Photography student. This is a wonderful opportunity to support future photographers. The scholarship will be awarded for the first time at our 2017 Senior Prizegiving.

Pasifika Group Donation

We received a $1,000 donation for our Pasifika group from the Lutui family. They are grateful for the education and care their five children have received from Katikati College and this generous donation will further support our Pasifika group’s development. Thank you to the Lutui family!

Lastly, to our senior students who are finishing their last week before exam leave; make the most of your opportunities to prepare for exams. Seek help and support from your teachers if you need it and do your best. To the Year 13 students who have their last days at Katikati College to look forward to, remember “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, “rip that label off like a band-aid” and “take every opportunity to smash that box open”. Embrace your uniqueness, take pride in yourself and demonstrate respect for who you are, where you come from and the people who made that possible.

Ngā mihi nui

Carolyn Pentecost | Principal