Principal's Report

Kia ora koutou, Nǐ hǎo

As you may be aware I recently travelled to China on a two-week Principals’ Education Delegation based around the life and work of New Zealander, Rewi Alley, from Canterbury. The experience was so profound and remarkable that I have attached a full report separately in this newsletter, trying to make sense of the enormous experience I had there.

This week has been a real joy with our Sports Blues evening on Wednesday, our Board Student Representative presentations at assembly on Tuesday, Celebration practices almost every day, our inaugural Scholar and Service Blues ceremony on Thursday afternoon, and our first Alumni event since Covid this evening at 5pm. We have expanded our alumni to include Friends of the School so we welcome all and everyone who has any interest in the long continuous and wonderful history of our school. We have also launched our Alumni Appeal - targeting the three worthy areas of kapa haka, rowing and choir. These will be changed up every three months or so and we would appreciate any donation at all that you are able to contribute. The Appeal brochure is attached in this newsletter. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors so far.

A busy time is ahead and soon seniors will be in their NCEA exams and juniors’ classes will move to S Block in preparation for this. It is imperative that you speak with your junior child about the importance of being settled and calm over the exam period for both juniors and seniors. As we have expressed this week - if you look after your teachers, they will have fun left in the tank at the end of the term. Student behaviour has vastly improved this year and I am delighted to report that we have moved from approximately eleven stand-downs and a handful of suspensions/ exclusions each of the last three years to just two this year! This is remarkable and is a credit to students, teachers and parents. If students show disrespect, defiance, rudeness, truancy or lack of care for uniform and grounds, they are now in a minority and only harming their own development and progress. Please support the school to get your own child into the swing of this as it pays huge dividends in their school experience.

We look forward to seeing you at Cultural Blues next week and Celebration on 26th October at 6pm. I have never seen such great numbers at the Subject Selection and Yr 10 NCEA evening, Sports Blues and Scholar and Service Blues. We are loving having parents in the school and encourage you to get along to everything you can in these precious five years of your child’s life.

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari kē he toa takitini

My success should not be bestowed onto me alone, it was not individual success but the success of a collective

Ngā mihi nui