2021 has been a busy year for the Rutherford Knights. Our motto is “the measure of success” and I’m sure we will remember it for being a successful one too.

We’ve been really lucky over recent years to have such amazing leaders serving us on the Student Executive. This year our House Exec includes Daniel Smith and Diaz McKay [House captains], Lily McQuillan-Reese, Abby Dowling, Verona Conole and Jasmine Rean. They’ve done a great job leading the House this year through our House events and they have provided such positive role-modelling for our younger students. They have helped to lead us to another win in the House competition. Here’s an over view of how the competition went this year.

In Term 1 we managed to win the House Sports Day for the 4th Year running, a feat that we’re very proud of. The House competition rewards consistency and the Rutherford Knights were able to back up our Sports Day result with a win in Senior Summerfest and a second placing to the Sheppard Makos in Junior Summerfest. An important house event in Term 2 was the 48 Hour film festival. This event was stretched out by a few more hours as the North Canterbury area was affected by flooding. The theme this year was “Supernatural”. We were placed 4th equal in this event. Our annual Junior Winterfest competition saw the Rutherford Juniors competing so strongly. They went through the competition undefeated, with one draw against Mansfield. Well done team. Term 3’s House events saw the conclusion of the Senior Winterfest in which we had a three way tie for first place with Ngata and Sheppard - a testimony to how tight the competition was.

Sadly, our annual House Choir competition had to be cancelled this year due to the COVID lockdown. This was a real pity as it is usually one of our favourite events in Rutherford House. The House competition wrapped up in the first two weeks of Term 4 with the Public Speaking contest [4th place] and first equal in the House Quizzes.

In terms of fundraising this year Rutherford entered a team in the “North Canterbury Relay for Life” event. The team managed to raise over $1200 for the Cancer society. In August we held our annual mufti day can drive for the Salvation Army. Over 1300 food items were gratefully received by our local Salvation Army food bank.

I’d like to thank all of the Rutherford students for their wonderful House spirit this year and their dedication to being the best that they can be. I’d also like to thank our hard working wananga kaiako for their input into the lives of our young people this year. Well done and thank you everyone.

As we come to end of the year I think that it’s important for our students to consider their well-being in the upcoming holiday break and to get plenty of rest and recovery… who knows, maybe we could start the year with a 5th House Sports' title?