I hope your holiday was restful and that you’re looking forward to another successful year ahead.

I would like to again acknowledge everyone for the support and commitment to reinventing Pāpāmoa College. Last year was a significant year of change and inquiry. We all worked extremely hard to identify what was working and what wasn’t. To our satisfaction we managed to implement a number of school improvement initiatives that will bring about improvement to school culture and operations. We strongly believe that these changes will in time see Pāpāmoa being a school of choice within our community. I also take the opportunity to acknowledge our new International Student programme and am excited about welcoming our students from around the globe. We would not be able to accommodate international students without the support of our homestay parent community and I thank them for their willingness to provide a kiwi experience as homestay parents.

Last year we consulted widely with regard to our strategic plan for the next few years. To that end, the Board and Senior Leadership Team have drafted a Strategic Plan to lift student progress, achievement and engagement. The draft plan is attached for your information.

This new year will be an opportunity to gain momentum and to consolidate our vision for the future. This vision ‘Embracing Opportunities; Creating Excellence’ signals our collective desire to create a learning environment that supports and seeks out growth and success.

Together with our new values (Courage, Aspiration, Resilience, Empowerment) and ngā pou, (Toi Tū Te Whenua, Toi Tū Te Moana, Toi Tū Te Tangata, Toi Tū Te Tiriti) these will all underpin all of our work over the next few years.

We have identified 5 strategic goals that will drive our improvement initiatives. These are:

• Creating a values based culture of wellbeing and care

• Connecting with our community

• Delivering high quality teaching and learning

• Building effective leadership capacity and capability

• Being a respected employer of choice

Under each of these goals will be some key strategic intents that will be our focus for the year. The leadership inquiries will be the actions undertaken by each member of the SLT and will involve investigations that will lead to well informed decision making and direction. It is intended that each inquiry will involve staff within the process of gathering information and implementing key actions.

Our NCEA provisional results were outstanding and we improved on last year's performance in nearly all areas. Some key points to note:

• We were better than national averages across all schools in NZ

• We were better than national decile (similar type schools) across NZ

• The national averages were down throughout NZ so to have increased despite this is remarkable.

• Most gaps across the school in NCEA have significantly closed.

• We expect further (albeit slight) improvement once confirmed results have been released in March this year.

Level 1 | 77.5 % passed (15.3% increase from 2022)

Level 2 | 76.5 % passed (3% increase from 2022)

Level 3 | 71.2 % passed (12.3% increase from 2022)

UE | 53.0% increase (12.6% increase from 2022)

It is pleasing that as a school we now have comparable if not better NCEA results than local secondary schools. 

Once again we look forward to welcoming you and your children to the kura in 2024.

Ngā mihi nui

Mr IL Ropati
Principal