Kia ora e te whanau. Like many of you, I’ve been thinking that 2020 has been a pretty rotten year – unprecedented times, some say, as we get used to our new COVID-normal.

For the students and staff of the college, those times extend back to 12 months ago with the arson of the Technology blocks disrupting school life for weeks, and even further back to March 2019 with the events in Christchurch and the impact that had on the college.

While these events have changed how we look at the world and how we interact with others, they have also given us a number of positives.

We realise that whatever is thrown at us, as a school and as members of our school community, we will bounce back – we are resilient. It’s an important lesson for our young people who are, more than ever, beset by issues and concerns that feed into the increasing anxieties that many carry.

These testing times have also brought out the best in many students as they support their friends and others in genuinely respectful and thoughtful ways – the performance of an impromptu haka and the making of fabric flowers, recognising the recent passing of a former teacher, Rachel Pawsey were the most recent examples of this.

A third positive is the level of support that the school, teachers and students have received from the community – our parents/caregivers and whanau, ex-students and teachers, other schools and businesses and people who don’t really have a connection to us but who are interested in what we do. That support, in its many different forms, has been humbling, and much appreciated.

Of course, school life goes on, regardless. The dance, music and drama productions perform to appreciative audiences, the sports teams play in front of COVID-limited crowds, students follow their interests and enjoy a rich variety of learning experiences outside of the classroom. No matter what we have gone through, and will go through, we will always work hard to ensure our students have great opportunities to be the best they can be. The support of you and our community makes it a lot easier to do that. Thank you.

Ngā mihi nui

Judith Taylor

Principal