We are now heading towards the last week of Term 2, already half the year complete! Next week is one of the most important for the school where we celebrate our special character. The week involves numerous activities such as staff vs student games, a fair that is run by the students, and battle of the bands. The week will be completed by the house singing and haka competitions. All of these activities are run during school hours and are important at building our culture.

Next week will see the mid-year reports published online. These reports will focus on the curriculum strands of the subjects and where your son is placed in relation to these. For Year 7 and 8 it will also include the mid-year National Standard reports for math, reading and writing. Although there is a lot of debate about the merit of these, they do serve some purpose, but it is also important to recognise that learning is a journey and being judged by National Standards can be misleading for someone who is only 11-13 years old.

For Year 9’s we have tried something new for the Integrated Project class. Students have self-reported based on the key competencies. This is aimed at getting the boys to be more aware of their learning rather than being told by a teacher.

When you go onto the parent portal it is important to be aware that there will not be comments, that the bi-weeklies are the comments for our reports so you need to refer to these to gain an insight of your son’s progress.

This week we had a visit by some old boys who now attend the NZIS (New Zealand Institute of Sport). They did fitness tests on our students in Years 7 & 8. The boys were tested on core strength, agility, speed and strength. They really enjoyed the process.