This year started by welcoming 8 new students into MASE Lachie, Jax, Bryce, and Tom in year 9, Nathan, William, Brooklyn and Gabe in year 7. All have fitted in well and contributed throughout the year.

We also say goodbye to 2 students Dominic Robertson (year 12) and Josh Larsson (year 13)

I asked Josh to sum up his time here at STCC and he wrote the following

As my time ends at St Thomas of Canterbury ends, it is now a time for reflection to look back at my time. Easily the best thing I learnt and experienced from my years here is the brotherhood and the sense of community, many other schools and communities also have a similar sense of brotherhood, but the thing that make St Thomas' so special is how far it extends. In the tough times was when it showed most for example when we went into lockdown, we may not have been able to go to school and talk and communicate but weather it was on teams with the teachers or snapchat with your mates there were plenty of people willing to help with any and every problem. Especially if you spent your lockdown binge watching movies and working full time as I did. The help to get the bare minimum done before the next shift started was second to none. This is just one example, over the years through the good or bad there are hundreds

of examples I could name of everyone coming together to help and support each other no matter what. This is the brotherhood that STC taught me and has taught many others.

Written by Josh Larsson

Dominic has finished the year on his course at Ara. I asked his Cameron to sum up his time with Dom

One of our leaving students this year is Dom, who is heading off to pursue his passions in a mechanics course. I remember Dom starting in my class in year 9, and he always makes us all laugh not only in form class but in our year 9 classes. He has always put a smile on my face and always good to have a yarn with and to annoy Mr Seelen together, he will be missed as the ‘class clown’ and we all wish him well on his course and future career.

Written by Cameron Hancock

Swimming Sports

On the 12th of February, it was swimming sports day. St Thomas bussed to Halswell pools to swim and win for their house. I was in Marlow. We had won swimming sports nine years in a row. It was about to rain as we got to the pools. Before the day started, we started off with our house chants. There were chants that were funny and real hype. For our chants we came last, but it didn’t really put us down. The day got hotter and hotter. I raced in a competitive race and a lot in the social races. I was just laughing with mates and just enjoying ourselves in the social race. The final races were at the end of the day. All the races finished, and we sat back down and waited to hear the results. Mcclintock came last, Rice came 3rd, Joyce came 2nd and we came 1st. We’ve won swimming sports 10 years in a row. We were celebrating like crazy. Hopefully we continue the streak.

Written by Ben Sanft-Nafoitoa

We arrived at school and got on the bus to the Halswell Pools. The atmosphere was electric, chainsaws were going, everyone was pumped.

We started of with the chants, Rice won and then we were off and racing. The non-competitive people who were doing it for fun got 1 point for their house for competing. The competitive swimmers got 1 point for their house if they won placed in their final.

In the end MARLOW took the honours.

Written by Lachie Curtain

Swimming sports was quite enjoyable with all the cheering and chants. Our mentor class all enjoyed this event as our house ended up winning in the end result. Despite coming last in the chants is was a very fun day and I’m sure everyone would agree with me. For the chants the score went Joyce 1st, Rice 2nd, McClintok 3rd then Marlow 4th. For the swimming aspect the results were Marlow 1st, Joyce 2nd, Rice 3rd and McClintok 4th. In the final result the results were Marlow 1st, Joyce 2nd, Rice 3rd and McClintok 4th. Overall, this was a fun day and I am looking forward to doing this next year

Written by Brooklyn Vaszilyko

Athletics Day

Athletics day started off strong with the teachers all loading us into the busses and shipping us off to Nga Puna Wai, first was the house chants, Joyce started the day strong by winning these with coming in second and McClintok coming in last and the mighty Marlow falling to 3rd. As the day went on it got a little bit warmer on the chilly early morning, one of the first races of the day was the 1.5k race with dravit coming out with a easy win, with the day coming along from previous experience seniors knew getting juniors involved and whole house participation and buy in is the key to victory, some memorable parts were Murphy Bartle’s flips at the high jump and Tom Shepard being kicked out of the 200m final for no apparent reason, beating 2 of the people in the final in his heats and still not making it. Safe to say he was not happy. With the vast majority of races done it was now time for the 100m finals and the relay. Slowly year group by year group the races finished with all the houses standing on the sides cheering on their mates and other people from the houses. Then after the premiere 100m race, the senior final has finished its race at that blistering pace it is back to the start of the year groups for the 100m relay, now there is significantly more attention and crowds watching as the houses competed to show off who had the fastest house in each year group. With bragging rights and house points on the table they set off. After each year group is done it is on till the next until we are up to the year 12s, but like all St Thomas events there needs to be a problem, there was lots of confusion weather it was a senior final, year 12s then 13s or who was meant to be racing, in the end we did a year 12s race then 13s with teachers and the premiere event. With the whole school watching the race commenced and the boys were off. After an accelerating race it was all over, time for year 13 photos and to head home, Joyce ended up winning the day with the close overall competition with McClintok lagging behind.

Written by Josh Larsson

It starts as an early day as we go to form class just before the earthquake memorial. We met and do the roll, after that we head over to the hall and do the memorial. 10 minutes later we head out to the buses to go to Nga Puna Wai for 2020 athletics day. We arrive to the sports hub and it starts out as a very cold breezy day. One of the first races of the day was the 1.5km race. It goes up in age groups until it gets till the open age groups. It was a long day and a long line of waiting for the café to open. My favorite activity of the day was probably the 200m sprint or long jump. Long jump had a nice drizzle of rain to cool us off for a bit.

Written by Jack Wassell

Athletics was good I did the sprints and running events. The atmosphere around the chanting was cool but unfortunately Marlow come last. I also liked special character week when we did mentor fun day and stuff like that

Written by Van Reid

Special Character Week

Fair

Halfway through special character week we had the fair. When we went into lockdown everyone wasn’t sure if we would be able to host this event. But thankfully we got out of isolation so we could participate in this event. Our form group was planning to have a rugby ball distance completion. We all put some money in to contribute to our prize. But unfortunately, due to the bad weather we couldn’t host our game. Everyone else was able to host their event either in Mount Sion, the hall and the gym.

There was tonnes of games and stalls to check out. There were people selling fizzy, Ice Cream, Baking, lots of other stuff. There was also hoop games and dart board prize games. There were people setting up gaming consoles to play Injustice and Gran Turismo in Mount Sion. In the gym there was Zorb Balls you could play in for free!

Overall, the Fair was a great experience for the first time for us. It was a bit disappointing that we went able to set up our game for everyone else because it was raining. But hopefully a year from now we will have excellent weather to make it happen.

Written by Tom Grob and Bryce Forbes

Singing Competition

The competition was hard, but since we had a lot of practice, it made it easier the feel in the electric and hype. It was a great special character week. For a new student, I was filled with excitement and joy when we got on that stage. I felt like I could do a triple backflip I had so much energy. So if I were to rate it on a personal experience, it would be 10/10.

Written by Gabe Wells

Mentor Fun Day

Mentor fun day is day during special character week where students can relax and have fun with their mentor class. Each mentor class would go through a series of activities run by the year 13 students of each class. The first activity MASE went to was dodgeball but the other class was full of year 13’s so we lost. Then we did basketball shots, but we lost that as well. Although we did many more activities, I think the class favourite was the card house activity because nobody bothered to do it, so everyone went on their phones. Overall, most people thought that mentor fun day was boring and pointless, but I thought that it was a good idea to get a break from lessons and that some of the activities were ok.

Written by Nathan Kilday

The Haka Competition

The haka competition was intense and fun. My experience was cool because it was my first time. The amount of house practicing it took was quite a shock, but we got it done. I remember when it was our turn and I had butterfly's but it good. I was in front row at the corner where all of the rice house was. I just did the haka and hope for the best. When they were doing the scoring and announcing it was a lot of adrenaline, but Joyce got last then rice came third and then I thought we could win but then McLintcock won but it was a great experience.

Written by William McConnell

Towards the end of term 3 we welcomed another new student to STCC and in our mentor group. Hamish Hann in year 10 come to us from Cashmere High School. Hamish is enjoying graphics and is a Mauythai kickboxer. I asked Hamish to write about his time here so far

As a new student to STC, the culture change from Cashmere was quite a standout point in all the new things here. The way people are, speak and treat each other are very different to what I was used to. Most of the kids have welcomed me well but it took me a while to find my people. On my first day there were random senior students asking me if I was new and asking me if I needed help. One boy said to me "Don't be afraid to ask for help or say hi when you see me around. Everyone around here is normally nice so just ask for help when you need it" That shows how well the boys here are taught and the teachers here obviously teach them respect very well. It did take me a while to find a good group of mates I started to hang out with a kid in my class and his mates, they welcomed me well and make me feel comfortable coming to school. St Thomas' from what I have seen is very good at teaching their boys respect.

Written by Hamish Hann