Term 1 is well under way after an opening powhiri and Mass and two very successful swimming and athletics sports days.  The participation, organisation and spirit at the two sports days was wonderful with some strong champions emerging.

Congratulations to Mr Nev Brooker, our sports coordinator, and his staff team and to our student House Leaders on the work and leadership involved in making these events happen.

Students and staff are enjoying the use of our superb new Waterford High Performance Centre now it is opened and available for use. I recently received the statistics from Sport Canterbury around student participation in sport across schools and staff involved in coaching.  Our results are impressive with 94% of our boys involved in sport (double the rate for boys in our region) and over 75% of staff coaching, which is extremely high.  For the size of our school, this represents a huge investment of resource and a lot of work and commitment from the adults involved. Congratulations to all and particularly to our senior leader with strategic responsibility for development in this area, Mr Steve Hart, whose passion and vision underlines this level of involvement.

Along with the wide and deep participation, we also compete at elite level in the premier school competitions in cricket, volleyball, basketball, rowing, rugby, rugby league and softball.  Sport is both important for pursuit of excellence in performance and physical challenge and for engaging young men in their school and education.  Achieving these results on limited finances is very challenging so any support you can offer is very much welcomed.

On a sporting note, congratulations to our Leader of Learning Physical Education, Mr Andrew Auimatagi, who has been named Head Coach of the NZ U16 rugby league team and is also a finalist for the Nexis NZ Canterbury Sports Awards in early March.  Andrew is also national youth talent spotter for the Warriors and a fine teaching professional and colleague.  We wish him all the best for this year.

A reminder to parents that next Tuesday 28 February is student workday, during which students are away from school working to raise money.  The Student Council controls the funds raised and decides on the projects the boys wish to develop.

On 10 March, we hold our first mentoring conferences for parents and students.  Classes do not run during this time as it is an opportunity for all parents and students to meet with the mentor and discuss goals for the year and learning progress.  Your son should lead this conference and be able to talk about his learning and success.  This is also an opportunity for parents to discuss any worries with your son's mentor teacher, who will journey with him for his school time, and who is your first port of call for any queries or concerns.

It has been lovely meeting and seeing new parents at recent events.  I hope you and your sons are settling into this community and, above all, that your boys are happy here.

Nga mihi

Christine O'Neill