"Everybody is a genius. But… if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (Einstein)

I have always liked this quote. To me, it speaks to the fact that, as educators, we have a responsibility to find a way for every one of our students to experience success in their time at school. Our vision statement talks about “every student experiencing success”. We understand that ‘success’ means different things to different students, and it is our job to find that spark of success for every one of our girls.

Our senior students have recently completed their school exams. Some girls will be pleased with how they went, others will be disappointed. Not all students are “Excellence” students, and we do not expect them to be! The most important thing is that the girls learn the value of working hard, no matter what their level of academic capability. Resilience and perseverance are two qualities that I so admire in people, and if our students can develop these two traits when it comes to their own learning, they are setting themselves up for success in the classroom and, indeed, success in life beyond school.

It has been great being able to see some of our students walk across the stage in assemblies again to receive various awards and acknowledgements. We have also enjoyed hosting some guest speakers, hearing speeches from our senior leaders and viewing some live student performances. It is these kinds of things that we have really missed over the past two years with COVID!

As I write this article, the winter sports season is coming to an end. Congratulations to all players who completed a successful season. By this I do not just mean ‘success’ in terms of winning. To complete a sporting season successfully includes, being a reliable and supportive team member, turning up to practices and games on time, playing fair, communicating with your coach effectively and always giving 100% when competing. I would like to thank our wonderful coaches and managers out there. You are all amazing and I do not know where school sport would be without your assistance. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Good luck to our Senior A Netball team and our First X1 Hockey team who are competing in their respective South Island Secondary Schools' Winter tournament next week.

You will see from the range of articles in this newsletter the variety of things that have been going on at our school over the first half of Term 3. The second half is not going to be any slower, and I am looking forward to seeing the girls continue to experience success in a range of areas.

Thank you all again for your continued support of our school. I hope people are feeling inspired by the fact that spring is only a few days away. Here’s to some warmer weather and longer days!

Ngā mihi nui,