The final two days of Year 9 and 10 examinations, Year 13 Prank, House Singing, final year level assemblies, International Student Farewell, Year 10 Marae Trip and New Entrant Morning all took place this week. Our Year 11, 12 and 13 students are officially on study leave in anticipation of NCEA examinations which start on Monday. It has been great to see quite a number of these students coming in for tutorials and additional support as they finish up internally assessed standards and prepare for the examinations.

Our junior students are beginning to get their examination results back and it was great to see the focus and effort that they put into these assessments. End of Year reports for these students will come out at the end of the school year.

All arrivals at school on Wednesday were greeted by ‘security guards’ who requested identification before we were allowed to enter the music festival that was taking place prior to school getting underway. This was the Year 13 prank and once again our girls managed to come up with a fun and harmless event that involved the entire year 13 and was great fun for the whole school. The most impressive aspect of the event wasn’t the presence of One Direction or Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells, it was the rapid transformation of the students from music festival goers back into uniform and the grounds from a rock festival venue back to our school grounds. The cleanup was outstanding. At the morning tea put on by staff for the Year 13s we thanked them for their contribution over the past five years and wished them well for the examinations and beyond. Their resilience over this past year, with all its ups and downs, has been particularly noteworthy.

All seniors will return to school on Tuesday 8th December for prize reading and Leavers' Assembly.

Our final ‘House’ competition for the year was held on Wednesday and saw each House sing Taylor Swift’s Love Story, one of our Celebration songs. This left our Choir Director and honorary judge, Ben Madden, slightly crazed and vowing to ‘cleanse his pallet’ with a diet of Deff Leppard on the car ride home! Cruickshank was the winner on the day, leaving the House Competition delicately poised. The overall winner of the 2020 OGHS House Competition will be announced at our Leavers Assembly on the 8th of December with the trophy being presented at Prizegiving that evening.

Eleven International Students were farewelled on Wednesday afternoon. These girls have been at our school for between one year and over four, and have contributed much to the life and culture of the school. We wish all our leavers well and are delighted that a number of them have chosen to study in New Zealand for their tertiary qualifications.

Next Tuesday is a Teacher Only Day. This day has been mandated by the Ministry of Education and is for training for teachers in the changes being made to NCEA. All secondary schools throughout the Southern Region will be closed on this day for all students apart from those sitting NCEA examinations on that day.