In June, the Lower House of the French parliament passed a law banning the use of mobile phones anywhere on school grounds from this September, stating that it was a “detox” law for a younger generation increasingly addicted to screens.

One of the highlights of the school year, if not of the past decade, for our school was the national recognition St Paul’s Collegiate School received at the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award for leading the Agribusiness Initiative in a ceremony held at the Beehive on Tuesday 3 July.

At the Independent Schools of New Zealand (ISNZ) annual conference held in Auckland in late June, one of our outstanding members of staff was presented with an ISNZ Honours Award for Service to Students and Sport, by the Honourable Jenny Salesa, Associate Minister for Education.

After 45 years of service at St Paul's, Mrs Bev McCarthy has retired from her role as Sargood matron.

Mr Alastair Grigg joined the Waikato Anglican College Trust Board as a new board member in September 2018.

Year 13 agribusiness students are put to the test when they are required to design a new agribusiness product or service, develop a prototype and present their innovation to a panel of judges in the hope they will receive the 'crocodiles' support to continue its development.

This year, St Paul’s had 51 students enter the ICAS Science competition, which is a one-hour multi-choice examination requiring students to use their science knowledge, reasoning and interpreting skills to determine the answers to 45 resourced based questions.

Each term students who have worked in an impressively diligent and determined manner over the past ten weeks are nominated by their housemasters. The following students were last term’s recipients of this recognition for which they were rewarded with an opportunity to attend a special morning tea with staff.

Every year in May, students learning Te Reo Maori, Spanish or French have the opportunity to participate in an online vocabulary competition organised by Education Perfect.

“Musical Theatre is a wonderfully complex collaborative process that is so productive that it has become a significant means of training future thespians; of teaching a range of cultural and intellectual skills; and of enabling students to make the most of the education they are offered.

“When students reflect on their time at St Paul’s, it is almost certain that the first thing that comes to mind is not the English test they passed, or the hurdles chapel service.

In 2018, it was decided to try a new format for two of the most well-received and popular inter-House events, by combining Arts Day with the house music solo and groups events and on Friday 3 August that is what happened.

On Friday 10 August, the following St Paul’s students performed a very impressive musical showcase for family and friends, of the variety and depth of talent that currently exists within the school:

Friday 24 August saw 45 students from Year 9-13 load themselves, and over 20 different types of instrument, into vans and head out for the day.

St Paul’s competed in the Ngaa Manu Koorero Waikato Regional Speech competition for the first time in its 53-year history and Year 9 student Hetekia Te Ua is placed third overall.

In term 2, three of our students entered the Waikato Schools’ Mooting competition

On the final weekend in June, the St Paul’s Premier boys’ basketball team competed in the inaugural CNI Basketball Tournament held in Hastings.

At the end of Term 2, the shooting team participated in this two-day event at the Waikato Gun Club.

Over the July holiday break, the 1st XI hockey team travelled to Christchurch for two days of hockey against Canterbury schools.

Three 1st XI hockey teams (from St Paul’s, Tauponui-a-Tia College and Whangarei Boys’ High School) played each other over the weekend of 4th / 5th August as preparation for the upcoming national tournament, Rankin Cup.

St Paul's first XI Girls' Hockey team secure second Midlands -inter-secondary school division two title.

On Wednesday, 1st August, St Paul’s had three students participating in the Waikato/BOP Individuals Duathlon Championships held at the Karapiro Domain.

From 3rd to 5th August, two boys and one girls’ team from St Paul’s attended the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Champs held in Palmerston North.

Grace Watson was selected to race in the Junior World Rowing Championships in Racice, Czechoslovkia in early August as a member of our country’s Junior Women’s Four.

Building on the success of this team over the past six years was one of the main objectives for the boys.

The 2018 rugby season ended with the greatest win of all, champions of the CNI rugby competition.

The talented team of Jed Rowlands and Cody Price helped deliver another season's win for our first XV rugby team in the CNI rugby competition. Here's a little more about the talent of these coaches:

As the strength and conditioning trainer for the St Paul’s 1st XV rugby team, TJ Pieters is preparing these boys for sport beyond school life.

A team of four St Paul's students who combined with four Waikato Dio students made up a Get2Go team, won the Waikato regional competition and will now go on to represent the region at the national event.

Let us tell you a little bit about what talent we have in our first XI hockey coaching team.

On Sunday, 19 August, our Open A Netball team side travelled to Mt Maunganui to play in a pre-UNISS tournament.

Three girls were awarded hockey caps for playing 50 or more games for the Girls’ 1st XI hockey team.

The following is a speech delivered in Chapel by Sophie Stocker and Ben Scanlon about the Year 11 students’ work with the Refugee Centre:

Who are we as human beings to judge one another because of their differences? As you saw in the video shown earlier, today’s theme is on Diversity. Diversity is the uniqueness of an individual person, making them different, to everyone around them.

Kia Ora E Te Whanau. St Paul was a remarkable man, an academic, adventurer and of course a passionate and inspirational disciple and follower of Jesus Christ.

On the afternoon of Thursday 24 May 2018, Mr John Mortimer a stalwart and a person who had a major influence on our school passed away.

The combined 40-Hours of Service team from St Paul’s Collegiate School and Waikato Diocesan School for Girls was invited to this year’s 40-Hour Famine Awards ceremony held at St Matthew’s in the City, Auckland on the evening of Thursday, 6th September.

With the Benchmark examinations for the seniors being held in August, the following students have been chosen to be a Junior School Leader for the second half the year, following their return from the Tihoi Venture School.

A full intake of 64 students have embarked on their Tihoi journey. The chills of winter are tapering as we are into the second rotation of outdoor pursuits.

Over the past eight years, our Year 13 Construction classes have completed a number of impressive building projects.

We welcome grandparents of new families to our school on Monday 5 November. Senior students will be on study leave at this time but are welcome back to host their grandparents.

As we are in the process of finalising enrolments for 2019, we ask that any parents of an existing student from Year 9 through to Year 12, whose son/daughter is definitely leaving at the end of 2018 to notify the Headmaster in writing by 5 October 2018.

St Paul’s has a legal responsibility to ensure that all absences are ‘explained’. This means that if your son/daughter is unable to attend school on any particular day, we would appreciate it if the parents of day students would ring the school office on the day of your teenager’s absence.