Dio's Bliss Enterprise (Emma Bartram, Beth Steele and Tessa Smyth) took home top honours at the Waikato-King Country Young Enterprise Scheme Awards, placing first in the region for their popular line of bliss ball mixes. They now head to the YES National Awards Finals, which will take place on December 6 at Atura Wellington.

Alongside being named Wintec Company of the Year, they also won the Waikato Business News Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award and were highly commended for leadership.

Another YES group, Furniture Flippers, were highly commended for their financial management.

COVID-19 / Derived Grade Exams

NZQA approves entitlement to a derived grade to candidates sitting external assessments who meet the eligibility criteria. Applications are made to NZQA by the school on behalf of a candidate following the submission of a completed application form by the candidate or the candidate’s parent.

These guidelines do not represent further rules and procedures but aim to guide candidates and schools to make appropriate applications by:

• clarifying the eligibility criteria and requirements for a derived grade
• assisting schools and candidates in providing sufficient information when making applications

We encourage all candidates, parents and caregivers to read here to familiarise themselves with the process. For more information, please contact Mr Errin Nin -  Deputy Principal Reporting, Priority Learners and Kaupapa Maaori, Ext. 2718.

Year 9 Gully Tour and Project-based learning experience

The outside providers are only free for a new Gully Tour date at the end of week 5. Unfortunately, this means we would only have about 9 or 10 partial days to complete a design thinking model in Term 4. This is not enough time for our Year 9s to get the most out of a unit of this complexity. As a result, we have decided to cancel the project-based unit experience for this year. We are all very sad about this.

Instead, our teachers have devised interesting and meaningful work for their Year 9s over the last weeks of school that will inspire and motivate learning. This will be done in their usual classes. Your aakonga will be well-catered for.

Ninja Valley - the ultimate playground 

Last month our 11SES classes experienced a trip to Ninja Valley as part of their final assessment for the year, which is about demonstrating self-management. Students were challenged to have a go at every activity and do their best to complete each one. We are grateful to be the first group to utilise the free Ninja Valley Bus transport. Thanks for a great day, Ninja Valley.