Dear parents, caregivers & whānau

It has been great to see some sporting tournaments able to go ahead over the past fortnight and I want to congratulate our volleyball teams on their outstanding results!

Also, a huge well done to all our students who took part in the Briefs Film Festival last night, especially Ruby Burr, Sam Martin & Jet Jones for winning significant accolades for their films.

Two of our Year 13 Business Studies groups won awards through the Young Enterprise Scheme last week with 'SunStitch' winning the 'Environmental Sustainability Award' and 'Seedlings Collection' winning the 'Make it Real - Best Annual Review Award.' Congratulations to both of these businesses!

Over the past fortnight we have confirmed plans for redevelopment of Block 3 over the coming 6-9 months. This is a $4.3m project fully funded through the Ministry of Education and will see Block 3 transformed into a modern, vibrant learning space with an integrated Cultural and Languages Centre.

Over the summer holidays there will also be extensive redevelopment taking place in Block 1 and infrastructure projects (roofing, plumbing, maintenance, weather tightness, structural remediation) across the school. I would like to thank John Hall (Business Manager) and James Hardy (MOE Property Advisor) for their foresight and tenacity to get these projects off the ground. Unfortunately, it does mean some classroom disruption for 2022, and every available space in the school will be occupied for lessons including the staffroom and library. I assure you the short term pain will be worth it in the long run!

One of the ways we will accommodate the classroom disruption will be to introduce a 'Line 7' option into our timetable. This essentially means giving students the opportunity to opt in to a timetable where they attend classes before school, after school and/or online. The timetable below gives an idea of how Line 7 could look, although not all sessions are likely to be in person. At this stage, we are asking year 11 students only to indicate through this form whether they would be interested in opting in to a Line 7 timetable for 2022. Opting into line 7 means that 3 periods during the school week would be non-contact periods and could be used to study and/or catch up on other lessons.

In our newsletter this week we have included a reminder to students and parents around our uniform expectations. Please do take note of the clarifications we have provided, particularly around appropriate footwear.

Thank you to all those that supported gumboot Friday today, it was great to see so many take the opportunity to raise money for such a worthy cause. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ngā mihi

Daniel Wilson
Principal