Kia ora koutou katoa

Oxford Area School Senior Prize giving was a testament to the hard work put in by our Year 11-13 students who accomplished some amazing achievements and successes. The Board would once again like to congratulate all the students on some outstanding awards presented on this celebratory evening. We would also like to acknowledge all of our senior students who have set personal goals and have achieved successes during the year.

In my welcome at the Prize giving evening I spoke about the importance of Togetherness. How together students grow, work and learn. How together our senior leadership team, teachers, staff, PTA, fellow board members, and families and businesses that sponsor, donate or give their time when required; all in some way are together helping our students achieve those personal goals, successes and achievements. And how together all of us, parents, caregivers, whaunu, staff, students, and our whole community; can together continue to ensure Oxford Area School be a great place for learning, where a top quality education can be obtained and enjoyment is had during this time.

Mother Teresa once said- “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things”.

Together as the Oxford community we can do great things for our school and our students!

Oxford Area School students are very fortunate to have the chance be able to participate in many different learning opportunities. There is far too many to name but they include things within the school environment, excursions, camps, a wide range of sporting opportunities and even overseas trips.

In the weekend I was fortunate enough to go watch one of the latest sporting opportunities given to some of our students, Dragon Boating. After a short four week training period they competed in the Schools ‘Give it a go’ day at Lake Rua. Oxford Area School, first time Dragon Boaters, paddled against six other teams from big schools Rangiora High School, St Margaret’s, Riccarton High and Avonside Girl’s High School. They competed in three heat races with Oxford winning two and a very close second in the final heat. St Margaret’s won all of their heats beating Oxford just narrowly in the final heat. The final was a nail biter with Oxford coming off the water victors after reversing the result of the heats to beat St Margaret’s.

As a parent, board member and great believer in how great this school is, I was overwhelmed with pride and how our students from Oxford Area School can compete against much bigger schools and come out victorious. Huge congratulations to this group of students and coaches, a well deserving result for your efforts. Together they worked as a team, set goals, trained hard, achieved targets and had fun while doing it.

This is just one example of the many great things we are doing here at Oxford Area School, together we can do a lot more!

Ngā mihi

Matt Riley (BOT Chairperson)