Today marks the final day of what has been a very busy, and at times very testing, term. Students and staff alike are looking forward to a well deserved break over the next two weeks.

We have made great progress as a school in planning and implementing innovations to curriculum, with iTime allowing greater flexibility for a number of learning opportunities. There have been many opportunities for students to learn outside the classroom with camps, sports tournaments and field trips taking place. Our Year 9 cohort has settled in well to their secondary schooling and there have been many highlights so far.

The Christchurch terror attacks were an unwelcome event in the term but served to pull our school community together as we supported our own students and the Muslim communities in Dunedin and Christchurch.

As the very long and tiring term has drawn to an end we have found ourselves dealing with a number of issues among students. While the numbers are very small when compared to our whole school population, they nevertheless have an impact on many people. The issues have all been in relation to students choosing inappropriate ways of managing conflict. The incidence of such behaviours has increased as the use of social media has risen and we find ourselves having to spend more and more time teaching students how to manage interpersonal relationships, how to deal with their emotions and explaining what is and is not ‘normal’ behaviour. With the prevalence of reality TV shows and the increasingly limited view of the world students are experiencing as a result of the algorithms that control what is presented to them on their devices, it is easy to see why young people are confused about how to behave.

As a school we have made it very clear to students that discriminatory or derogatory language towards others will not be accepted and that physical violence is never okay. When we do have to deal with such issues we approach them from an educative stand-point and support the small number of students who struggle to put things right and make changes in their behaviour.

Fortunately these events do not happen often and we are so fortunate at this school to have such supportive and caring pastoral and teaching staff who guide and encourage our girls to do the right thing and model our core values of respect, positivity and integrity.

I wish you all a restful break over the holiday and Easter break and look forward to seeing everyone back in the new term.