Dear Parents and Caregivers

Greetings, tena koutou katoa, talofa lava

We are fast approaching the end of the year, so may I therefore take a moment to thank you for your continued support.

We have come through the year in good shape and our aims have been achieved.  I am pleased to let you know that progress towards the completion of our new school is good, and we are on track for the move to our new site at the end of Term 1, 2019. 

The new school now has a commanding presence at Oruapaeroa and behind the scenes a lot of work has been completed.  It is continuing to be done, to ensure that the new school is going to be at the absolute forefront of cutting edge education in New Zealand.

Next year’s Year 9 intake of 260 pupils, will have the honour of starting their five-year period of time at secondary school at our old site, moving as the fresh new faces to the new site.  At the end of their time with us they will have made their mark as the academic scholars, cultural icons, sporting heroes, Head Boy and Senior Prefects of 2023.

Preliminary work is well underway here at Shirley.  We are throwing out old resources that are past their use-by date.  We are storing still useful resources for the shift next year, and finally we are identifying resources that will be put up for sale in due course.  This with a view to helping us bring in new resources that we will need when we shift.  I will not go into the mechanics of the shift right now, other than to assure you planning is well advanced, and all of our community will get details of what is required, early in the new year.

A reminder about co-location;  we are currently still engaged in dialogue with Avonside Girls’ about what this will look like, but just to whet your appetite, bear in mind that we had a “co-location” similar situation between Marian College and Shirley Boys’ in the pre-earthquake years. This meant linked timetables where senior students at year 12 and 13 had some joint classes. There were various manifestations of this arrangement, for example in Languages we often had a joint class at year 12 taught by a teacher in one school and a joint class at year 13, taught by a teacher in the other school. In other areas we had spill-over numbers of students topping up classes in the other school. For example, if for the sake of argument we had 26 Year 13 Physics students needing a class, 20 could stay in one school with the balance of 6 students going to the other school.
Arrangements such as these ensure a good use of resources.

Some shared facilities will also happen. For example a Performing Arts Centre shared by the two schools and by the community is likely as well. My personal wish as far as this is concerned,  is for a centre strongly linked to the Council’s Sport and Recreational Centre.

However, everyone needs to keep in mind the following non-negotiable things.

• Our name will not change.
  
• Each school will continue to operate as a separate entity with its own unique ethos.
  
• Shirley teachers will be employed by Shirley Boys’ High School, which will retain its own board.
  
• We will take though the best of our practice, great relationships between staff and students, and a culture woven around BTB and The Shirley Man.
  

CIE and NZQA examinations and the internal examinations for Juniors  will be major focus areas for our current crop of students.  I wish everyone involved the best of luck and I trust that each individual (and of course the school as a whole) will perform strongly. Our BTB goal will not surprise.  We have set ourselves the task of reaching the same high standard that was achieved in 2017 in the general school and on improvement in the area of merit and excellence passes.

On the student front,  warm congratulations to Ryan James and the NZ under 17 team which claimed the ultimate prize at the Junior World Series Indoor Cricket Tournament here in Christchurch, by beating South Africa in the final.

They won all of their games apart from one loss to South Africa in pool play, a loss avenged in the final.

Everyone at Shirley wishes Ryan and the team well for the future, and especially for the Under 22’s in 2 years’ time in Australia

In conclusion may I wish you well for the remainder of 2018.  There will be plenty of challenges for us in 2019, but truthfully we are well placed to meet these. Between you and me, as always, I am looking forward to them.

Regards and best wishes

John.