General

It has been great to see our senior students stepping up and really putting some thought into their futures. Especially great to see most of our Year 13 students getting applications sorted for university and other tertiary study for next year. It was a little disappointing that the University course planning sessions at school had poor attendance, unfortunately, I see this service being cut by the universities if students don’t take up these opportunities. With some students opting for local employment, apprenticeships or short courses, lots of work has been done on updating current CV's and making them more suitable for applying for jobs. I am always available to help students with these tasks, they just need to email me or pop in and see me.

Course selection for 2020, went well, and the timetable guru’s are now working on putting that together. It is a massive job and they work hard to meet as many requests as possible, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. I am sure this will be shared with us all in due course and discussions will take place around any problems.

There are some great options out there for our school leavers, one being studying with our local Polytech - Toi Ohomai. They are offering lots of courses and also scholarships around study for 2020, so if this is on your radar, please come and have a chat.

Trades Academy

I am really pleased to see many of our students have managed to keep up with 100% attendance to their trades courses, that is awesome, showed great commitment. Next term students will only be called back into trades courses to complete any unfinished work, at the moment I have not had any requests from any of the tutors, so will assume that our students are all on track.

Gateway

Another great term of Gateway student’s being involved in the working community. The Gateway Programme has seen 40 students successfully placed in local businesses throughout Taupo. Majority of students have completed their 10 week placement with some carrying on for extra experience. The last of our students will finish up week 4 of Term 4 in time to start studying for end of year exams. Students have been placed in a variety of businesses and industries. We would like to thank all of the businesses that took on our students, some year after year. Your support is never ending.   

First Aid and Health and Safety

Each year Gateway students partake in a First Aid and Health and Safety course. These courses are funded by the Gateway Program and gain the student Unit Standards which add to their 20 credits total.