Kia ora e te whānau

I have been fortunate to enjoy a week of very positive events so far. It was an absolute pleasure to be part of our Academic Blues Awards at Toitū on Tuesday evening. Held offsite, this formal event is certainly a fitting way to celebrate with family the achievements of our NCEA students who achieved an Excellence Endorsement in 2024. Congratulations to all the recipients who achieved this award.

Our endorsement results for 2024 were again a credit to the staff and students who worked hard throughout the year to strive for excellence. Similarly, we were very pleased with our NCEA Level 1 results. As some of you will know, the assessment standards, internal/external assessment balance and the assessment credit values was changed in 2024 due to the national NCEA reforms. As a staff, we made the decision to offer fewer credits in a level one course, and do them thoroughly. This was partly because of the changes described, but also so we could ensure a strong implementation for staff and students with quality teaching and learning at the core. Along with this, the team supporting our year 10 and 11 students, ensured close monitoring of progress in NCEA as well as achievement in the new reading, writing and maths co-requisite exams. As a result, we bucked the trend as reported by the media in January which showed a significant decline in the number of students achieving NCEA Level One. In all cases, our NCEA and UE results were an improvement on the previous year and in some cases the best since 2021. Some highlights for us are outlined here (using provisional data):

Level One: 82.4% (an increase on the previous year regardless of NCEA change), whereas the national rate was 45.3% and similar schools to ours was 55.9%.

20.2% of our students gained an excellence endorsement compared to 9.2% nationally and 11.1% for school similar to us.

Level Two: 38.4% of Trinity students gained an excellence endorsement compared with 12% nationally, and 15.2% in schools similar to us.

Level Three: 86.4% of our year 13 students gained NCEA L3, and 81% gained University Entrance. Both these results were an increase on the previous year, and the data for our boys compares very favourably with national results. 86.5% of our Trinity Year 13 males gained Level 3 and 76% gained UE, compared to 71% and 54% respectively when compared to schools with a similar socioeconomic makeup.

Yesterday we hosted guests from the Edmund Rice Education Association in Australia. With an Edmund Rice charism, along with Mercy and Dominican, we were pleased to connect in with our ‘relations’ across the Tasman Sea. We look forward to strengthening these connections in the future and, with stronger connections the ability to share resources, knowledge, and experiences in the coming years. Talking about the founders of these religious orders is another way to help our young people to understand how they can be disciples of Christ (ākonga ma te Karaiti), in the world today with the gospels as their guiding principles.

During this Lenten period, may we continue to reflect on our own lives, our challenges and our contribution to the communities in which we live, using the gospels and Jesus Christ himself as our guide and companion.

Warm regards,

Kate Nicholson

Principal

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