Kia ora. The college has been busy of late with a number of special ceremonies as we farewell our Year 13 students and celebrate achievements across academia, sport and culture.

The first of these was our senior prizegiving, where we congratulated Ryan Wilson on being named Dux for 2023. Ryan received Excellence awards in Biology, Religious Education and Statistics. He was first in subject for Biology and Statistics, completed the University of Canterbury 100 level Calculus course and, at time of writing, has achieved 102 Level 3 excellence credits.

You can read more about our other Premier award winners later in this newsletter.

A number of our Year 10 students are joining students from our fellow Marist schools to complete the Awa run in Whangarei in the coming weeks. The Awa run involves running 50km over three days along the Whanganui River. Not only is this a personal challenge, the event raises funds for Next Door, an initiative run by the Young Neighbours Charitable Trust that seeks to reduce educational inequality in Aotearoa. If you would like to make a donation to support our boys and the cause, you are most welcome to via the givealittle link below.

https://givealittle.co.nz/l/marist-schools-awa-run-2023

Recently, I attended the Zonta sports awards where a number of our students were recognised for their outstanding achievements as individuals and in team sports. The quality of recipients across the Canterbury region was quite remarkable. A special mention to Sam Woodgate, who was named overall winner for Outstanding Achievement in an individual sport. Matthew Glen was awarded Highly Commended in this category, and our Maadi 8 and First X1 Hockey were recognised with Highly Commended in the outstanding team category.

At prizegiving, we announced the Head Students for 2024. We congratulate Simon Curnow on being named Head Boy and Troy Cutbush on being named Deputy Head Boy. Both Simon and Troy are very much looking forward to leading the school in 2024.