Kia ora tātou | hello to us all

We held a wonderful prizegiving for seniors last night and it’s always overwhelming to consider the vast range of talent we have. It’s also awesome how much community support we receive and the range of scholarships for our students. Congratulations to all the prize winners (see other article). My thanks to our organising team, especially Elaine Guy and Trish Evans but also the work put into data by Matt Maude and the whole range of others who make this possible. Our PTSA people were outstanding, thanks to you all.

Today, we have our Transition Day for year 6 students coming as Year 7 in 2023 (other years also ‘move up’ a year level). Next year, we’re expecting a large cohort of 155-160 students, so we will have 6 year 7 classes. Mana Ake is a health/wellbeing organisation which has supported the transition process this year, very successfully, and we’re looking forward to making the process smooth. No-one needs extra stress. Thanks to Amanda McPherson for her organisation of the day, Andy Lee and Lesley Pengelly for extra support.

Exams are officially over and many students have been helping us with moving furniture all week, as we clear out classrooms for summer renovations.

We also have some further staff changes for next year:

Jayne Mallinder will take a year off for health recovery and we wish her the very best for this
Mark Saunders will move to Australia to teach his dream subject, Aviation; thanks to Mark for his amazing teaching of Calculus and adaptation to bees this year!
John Macdonald will move to Rangiora High School for PE next year (yes, John did leave at the start of 2022 but he’s been back and we’ve appreciated his work and support of sport)
We will keep Shelly Boyes who will work on Pathways and developing our trades options, as well as some Careers alongside Sarah Grenfell who we will welcome back
Irene Chillingworth, currently relieving for us, will teach a year 7 class in place of Kimberley Kensington (parental leave)
Jill Heaps will teach at year 7 and be our year 7 Dean; Jill is currently at Havelock school but has mostly taught at Southland Boys.

As we enter the last week of term, kia kaha | stay strong,

Andy England

Dates this term

Junior prizegivings and last day of term: 9 Dec

Junior Prize Giving Friday 9 December