2024 has been a mixed bag for RICE house. The electricity was ignited with the inaugural annual swimming sports taking place at Halswell Pools. Standing back and watching our Year 13’s awhi our house into position, I felt so proud of the connection within our house. I wasn’t the only one. With Hamish Barclay playing the role of ‘Security Guard’ at the bathrooms you could tell by his demeanor he was impressed also (not always an easy feat). While we didn’t take out the overall points in the water, our house song and haka put us in a good position, giving us a solid start to 2023.

A couple of weeks later we were at Nga Puna Wai for athletics. Despite the tough competition out on the track and field, RICE house showed great teamwork, once again, during the house song and haka. The spirit each student showed detailed how connected they felt to STC and more importantly to OUR house. The efforts both on and off the track continued to keep us in a good position moving forward, however, the points were tight, and Marlow took on an early lead by earning top points in both the swimming & athletics.

Term 2 saw many speed wobbles and false starts, with strikes impacting several of the planned activities. For several of our senior men other options presented and with successful transition plans in place these young men ventured off into various external courses or full-time work. Acknowledging everyone’s journey through education has different timings I sincerely hope that these young men are making the most of their time in areas of interest to them.

With term 2 being a challenge, coming into term 3 the pace continued to grow with the idea that the term would be more settled, yet busy term. Thank you to Elliot Price, RICE House Kaitiaki and the other students who offered their support to run the house practices, ensure RICE was represented at Bruce Challenges, that cans were brought in for can collections and other activities leading up to Special Character Week saw us representing RICE house with pride.

Being the Dean of RICE house has and sharing the lead with Elliot during the 2023 school year has definitely had it’s challenges, however, I am so proud of Elliot’s efforts and the support from other Year 13’s and Year 12’s to ensure our house is well represented.

“McClintock for breakfast, Marlow for lunch, Joyce House for dinner and we MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH”

Megan Heather

Dean of Rice 2023