Tēnā tātou (hello to us all)

With perfect weather - dry and warm, no wind, a little cloud cover - Endeavour Day is engaging the whole school with fun and sporty activities bringing us all together. The House Leaders - staff and students - really build up the ambience and it’s always a good reminder of how awesome our community is. A huge thanks to Pip Deans and her organising crew plus all the staff who go out of their way to make it a great day.

Thanks to so many people for the cheers I got at last weekend’s Coast to Coast. It was a great privilege to be able to race alongside our students, especially my team-mates Andrew Maultsaid and Hannah Molloy and their amazing parent support crews. Well done to our senior team and Sport Assistant Lexie Sinclair-Dockerill.

We are very proud of our English & Languages Dept who received a letter from NZQA commending them on the pilot they ran last year. Their work on student feedback will be used as national exemplars and they’ve been invited to present at a national conference of English teachers. It should be reassuring for us all to know we have such skills and rigour in our staff team.

We are very hopeful that we have a teacher appointment for English and Social Studies ready to start Monday 26 February. Teacher Nicole Reardon started her parental leave this week and we wish her the very best for this exciting time.

I appreciate that our uniform has not been as clear as we would have liked and this has caused parental frustration. We’re working with our suppliers and trying to strike a pragmatic balance for parents - guidelines with pictures will be out very soon - and we’re committed to having the full 2025 uniform clearly set out by June this year.

I look forward to seeing you at next Thursday’s whānau evening: we have a range of extra resources there for families and the key theme is “tell us your child’s strengths” so we can know them better and try to work from their strengths.

Mauri ora ki a koutou,

Andy England

Tumuaki | Principal

School Based Vaccination Programme