A special welcome to our Year 9 students and other students also joining our kura for the first time.

A special mention, also, to our International students who have remained in New Zealand over the summer in order to continue their education with us. I would also like to welcome the following new staff:

Bridget Clare - English
Justine Priest - English
Suzanne Balasingam - English
Talitha Holt - PE
Rachael Marjoribanks - PE
Tania Tiplady-Symes - Social Sciences
Cody Kivell - Itinerant Music
Emma Minchin - Itinerant Music
Trudy Fowler - Admin Support - Library and Departmental

Our Executive Team of Prefects this year includes:

Elizabeth Mapuilesua - Head Girl
Grace Fakahau - Head of Community
Nahal Ghamkhar - Head of Sciences and Humanities
Aylin Atalay - Head of Arts
Genevieve Bell - Head of Sport
Kobe Ropitini - Pikikōtuku

I look forward to working with them this year. 

As we look forward to 2021 and reflect on the challenges of 2020, it is important to consider who we are, what we stand for and where we are heading as a learning community. This year, we are reviewing our junior curriculum and also preparing for the NCEA change programme to be implemented in 2023. It is timely to remind ourselves of our vision and core values as we look forward.

Our vision continues to be: He manu hiringa, he manu ariki, he manu rere ki te rangi. Inspiring young women who are successful learners and act with integrity.

Our values continue to be based on: Whakaute (Respect), Whakamana (Resilience), Whakatangata (Social Responsibility). We teach and model the behaviour we want based on putting relationships at the heart of discipline. For that reason, we appreciate all opportunities to engage with our community; as knowing our learners; who they are; where they come from and what their stories are is integral to this. We enjoyed meeting with those who could come to our Whānau Hui on 1 February and we look forward to meeting with our Year 9 parents and caregivers at our ‘Meet and Greet’, on 16 February. Our goal for 2021 is to continue to build effective teaching and learning strategies in practice throughout the school through a culturally responsive and relational focus. We have set our focus on AKO - a reciprocal learning process across the school and wider community. We co-construct a student focused, supportive and safe learning environment where everyone, including the teacher, is a learner. We will be working hard to develop this focus through the year and throughout the myriad of school wide learning experiences. 

We have been developing our device and cell phone policy and remind students that cell phones are not permitted on or visible in the classroom - unless the teacher says, and then, only for an educational purpose. We have made some changes to how Chrome Books are made available to students during the school day - they can no longer be issued from the kiosk but if required in the classroom, teachers will make them available. Students can still access Chrome Books from the Library at break times and our library continues to be open after school for homework completion.

Over the holidays many of our students shone in many sporting, cultural, artistic and academic ways and much of this is celebrated in our newsletter. Our NCEA results were pleasing and it was good to see that through the hard work of students, teachers and whānau most students achieved their academic goals and, our results overall, like similar years, were well above national averages. Tumeke!

I encourage all our students, but especially our new students, to engage in the many activities and opportunities available to them within our school community. Have a great year everyone, and I look forward to continuing to work together for our students.

Ngā mihi nui,

Tracy Walker

Principal