From the tumuaki | principal 2024 Term 1 Week 9

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More actions from us to maximise good learning and an appeal for your support, plus all the great stuff with sport and culture. Don't forget Tuesday is a school holiday!

 Kia ora koutou

We’re doing our best to maximise learning time and one way is to crack down on the time being wasted by some students in getting laptops to use in classes. As always, many students always come prepared for learning (most actually) but some routinely make excuses for not having a laptop. Laptops aren’t always used for classes but much of the time they’re essential - they enable learning in ways we couldn’t previously and there are very few people who don’t need to be competent with laptops in adult life; NCEA exams now require a laptop. We do recognise that this isn’t easy for everyone and where families genuinely can’t afford a device, or get stuck while one is being repaired, we can lend one for a short period of time - please just communicate this with your child’s Whānau Teacher. Our BYOD guidelines are on our website. It would be great to have everyone’s support to ensure Chromebooks/laptops are brought to school charged every day and/or communication works well through Whānau Teachers.

Students continue to impress me with great work and positive interactions around the school. Our sporting successes are amazing, with volleyball (2-0) and dragon boating (SISS Silver 1000m and Bronze 500m Mixed teams) last weekend (see DHS Sport Facebook). Monday’s Cultural Diversity day was a great recognition of our changing demographic profile: we have seen a significant increase in students from Asia with the Philippines and India in the lead (plus our International Students who are largely from Japan and Thailand currently).

I think everyone will be pleased with a long weekend. The changes to our timetable that we’re piloting appear to be delivering their aims well but also have some other effects, one of which is energy spent on working out what day we’re on! Next term, we will run a full evaluation of this way of working so we can plan for 2025.

Please remember there is no school on Tuesday. Enjoy your long long weekend.

Mauri ora ki a koutou

Andy England

Tumuaki | Principal