Kia ora e te whānau, welcome back to another year, and an especially warm welcome to the parents, caregivers and whānau of students new to the college.

We’ve had a positive start to the year, welcoming over 270 Year 9 students to the school at the start of February, which has increased our school roll to over 1170 students.

It’s been a busy start too, with the inaugural Extra-curricular Expo resulting in large numbers of students signing up for activities, and the annual Top House event kicking off the House competition in its usual enthusiastic and colourful fashion (Congratulations Te Kanawa, a significant victory!).

Congratulations to our senior students for some great 2023 NCEA results. The ongoing national trend of declining pass rates continues, and although we had a very creditable Level 1 pass rate of 76% (against a national average of 61%), we were especially pleased with the efforts of our Level 2 (87% pass rate) and Level 3 (pass rate 72%) students.

NCEA changes kick in this year, and it’s important that students and their whanau understand these changes. Level 1 has a Literacy and Numeracy requirement which is different from previous years. The standards that make up the courses are new. External assessments (exams) will be done online. It can be quite confusing, so we are holding an NCEA Information Evening to help you understand these changes and equip you better to support our students. This event will be held on the same night as the Parent Teacher Meetings, allowing you to schedule your appointments and find out more about NCEA in one evening. You can find further information in this Pānui.

We welcome the following staff to UHC this year:

Siobhan Kirk, Science

Ruth Gamble, Social Sciences

Sue Hannaway , Textiles

Amandeep Kaur, Mathematics

Diana Dixon, Foods

Karla Morton, Mathematics & Numeracy

Sho Nonomura, Japanese

The UHC Board confirmed the new Strategic Plan, which contains our new Vision statement and an updated set of 4 school Values. You can find this here on the school website.

The term is racing by, but there's a "good vibe" in the school, and a lot happening to take us to the end of the term.

Judith Taylor

Principal