Tēnā koutou katoa, Mālō e lelei,

Welcome back to Term Three. I trust you have all had a relaxing break and are ready for the exciting and busy term that lies ahead for us. Congratulations to all our students who have come back ready to learn and do their best. Term Two was such an unusual experience for all of us. We continue to practice good hygiene and stay alert so we can be responsive to possible changes in our Covid-19 status in New Zealand.

Our goal for 2020 is around student and staff well being and we endeavour to look after our learning community and our people, 'He Tangata, He Tangata, He Tangata’, and have our students living their learning. We continue to make sure our College values of Manaakitanga (caring and connecting), Ako (learning from each other), Rangtiratanga (leadership and self-management) and Kotahitanga (unity and collaboration) are central to all we do. As we continue to focus on student and staff well being this term, our priority will be to support our senior students to manage their workloads and expectations regarding NCEA.

We welcome NZQA’s announcement to modify the NCEA qualification requirements for 2020. You can find more information here about those changes.

We have Parent Teacher interviews next week on Wednesday, August 5 and we welcome all parents to come in and meet with their child’s teacher. This is a great opportunity to raise any learning queries and share any learning celebrations.

Teacher Only Day

We remind you that on Monday, August 10 there will be a teacher only day.

Deputy Head Students

Following the farewell of Quinton Landman, our Deputy Head Boy, and Sophia Spurr, Deputy Head Girl, who have taken up fantastic opportunities to get their careers started, we had two vacancies to fill on our head student team. At Katikati College we are fortunate to have so many talented and capable young leaders and we are delighted to announce and celebrate our Deputy Head Students for the remaining part of 2020:

· Deputy Head Girl - Caitlin Thorburn

· Deputy Head Boy -Lesen Huiarangi

Congratulations to Lesen and Caitlin. We know they will do a fantastic job of leading our students.

Congratulations

Our 2019 Deputy Head Girl, Irene Vakasiuola, has been named a finalist in the 2020 TECT Youth Spirit Award following our college nomination. We are really proud of Irene and wish her all the best in the finals.

Innovative Horticulture at Katikati College

Our Innovative Hort programme provides real opportunities for our learning community and we are excited to have passed the halfway mark raising our funds for the new purpose built Innovative Hort Centre. We can confirm that the Trust has now raised just over half the funds required. There is $135,800 in the bank and further pledges take the total raised so far to $280,800. You can find out more about the project here.

Community Suggestions

There is a ‘Community Suggestion Box’ available on our Website for our school community to have their say and communicate their ideas and feedback to the College. These comments will be addressed each month through the Principal’s Comment of each Newsletter.

Recent suggestions or queries made by the community have included:

• Requests to update our website, review our reporting system, more concrete in the Year 7 and 8 area and cell phone free classes

• Frustration was expressed with the system for students to change their semester courses and a lack of consultation over timetable changes.

We are updating our website and this should be ready by the end of Term Three. We intend to implement a more robust system for course changes including parent sign off and we have a plan around community consultation. This will be happening towards the end of this term, and will include the NZCER wellbeing@school survey.

We wish you all the best for Term Three. May it be filled with lots of laughter, adventure and learning!

Carolyn Pentecost

Principal/ Tumuaki

Katikati College