‘Mā whero, mā pango, ka oti ai te mahi’ - Many hands make light work, an apt summary of the term. It has been heartening to see our students, staff and wider community come together to support each other during challenging times.

Despite the challenges of Covid, the College remains in excellent heart. One of the biggest changes to our learning programmes commenced at the beginning of this year with the implementation of a revised Junior Pathways (Inspire) programme. The learning pathway is now broken down into three phases:

· Inspire / Whakaohooho (Years 9 and 10) - Learning packages are designed to inspire a love of learning in different curriculum areas.

· Explore / Whakatōmene (Years 11-12) - Having had experiences in a range of learning areas, ākonga in Years 11-12 begin to explore areas of interest in more depth as they look to specialise.

· Embed / Whakararau (Years 12-13) - Senior ākonga embed their previous learning and experiences in courses that align to their specific interests and future pathways.

In years 9 and 10 tamariki, in collaboration with staff and whānau select a course that reflects their interests, aspirations and next steps in learning. Our younger students are engaged, interested and enjoying learning at school which is great to see. As we complete this process in 2022 we begin to shift our sights to how our learnings in the junior school can flow through to Years 11-13. You can see the junior programme in more detail by clicking here to access the Junior Pathways Handbook.

Our school wide focus on Love of Neighbour (almsgiving), self-denial (fasting) and prayer continues. A prayer survey was sent to all students so that, as a team, we can get a good baseline of where our students are at. This will help us provide appropriate resources to help foster the prayer and faith life of our ākonga. Posters of the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be have been produced and are available for all kaiako to have to help boys learn these three important prayers. All kaiako have also received a resource to help encourage the boys in their Lenten journey. In recent weeks our focus has been on Love of Neighbour with a can drive for St Vincent de Paul and a mufti day to help fund the SVO group who provide lunches each week for St Bernadette’s in Hornby and St James in Aranui.

Our outside Stations of the Cross are up and many Religious Education classes have already made this pilgrimage around the College. Adoration is now available each Wednesday at lunchtime so that staff and students can pop in and spend a few moments in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Ministry of Education are developing an enrolment scheme amendment for our school as required by the Education and Training Act 2020 as our school is likely to continue to experience a situation where there is more demand for enrolments than there are places available within your maximum roll. It is also important that we update our enrolment scheme to reflect recently redrawn parish boundaries.

There is also a survey available for individual parties who are within the school community to make submissions. The survey and proposed enrolment scheme can be found at https://consultation.education.govt.nz/education/st-bedes-college-enrolment-scheme-amendment

Until next time, noho ora mai,

Jon McDowall

Acting Rector