This week has felt a bit more ‘normal’ with the school ski trip and winter sports tournaments taking place.

Around 100 students and staff hit the slopes at The Remarkables and Coronet fields from Saturday through to Tuesday and, despite some inclement weather on the mountains, all enjoyed some quality time on the snow. A special thank you to Miss Young for all the planning required to make this happen under Alert Level 2.

On the tournament front Otago Girls’ was represented in three sports; football, netball and hockey. All teams performed creditably with Netball losing to the winning team by one goal in pool play in an outstanding game. The highlight of the week was the 1st XI Football Team taking out the Southern Satellite Football Tournament in a tense and even game against Columba College which went into extra time. The footballers had no goals scored against them throughout the tournament.

On another note entirely, year levels were treated to speeches from their peers through the Speechfest competition. Congratulations to all participants and well done to the winners. Public speaking is an incredibly useful skill that I encourage everyone to practise.

Next week we have Library Day on Tuesday. This is always fun and results in many new books entering the library for the benefit of the students. The theme for the day is ‘Spring Fling’ and we encourage students to dress up accordingly. House points will be awarded to those who dress up.

Our parallel examinations get underway on Thursday 10 September. Seniors (students in Years 11 to 13) will be on examination leave from Wednesday 9 September to give them the opportunity to make the mental switch from internally assessed content to external, and to spend time studying. With the uncertainty created by Covid around the end of year NCEA examinations, it is important students do their best in our school based examinations. Not only will this help identify where students need to put their energies in the lead up to the end of year exams, this will also ensure they have grades that can be used should NCEA exams not go ahead. While this scenario is unlikely, we do need to plan for the worst while hoping for the best. The Friday following the examinations is our ‘Portfolio’ day, where students with portfolio based subjects such as Art and Technology are able to spend time on their work. Students without portfolios to complete will use the day to catch up and prepare for the end of the year examinations.

We are hoping that today’s Government announcement will enable us to go ahead with a number of events planned for between now and the end of the term.

It has been a long and tiring term for us all, but the end is in sight. Please support your daughter to get to school every day, to spend time each night on homework and study, and to spend time being physically active. In times of added stress, such as we are experiencing at present, and in the lead up to examinations, sleep, good nutrition and physical activity become even more important than usual. If you have any concerns about how your daughter is managing, please contact her Head of House or the school guidance counsellor.