29 August 2023
He pai ake te iti i te kore
A little is better than none
Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa
I have returned from being on a five week sabbatical, (of which I spent 7 days in isolation for contacting COVID-19) to find the school in good heart. The winter sports programme has now been completed, and I was pleased to hear that the Netball 1 team had won the Premier 3 Reserve final to gain promotion for next year. This week is busy as we have tournament week which gives our students the opportunity to play sport against different school around the country. We have teams competing in Basketball, Netball, and Football and we are enjoying tracking their progress.
Last week our senior students planned and held a TED-X conference at our College. Speakers were invited to participate, one even travelled from as far away as Rotorua. The quality of the speakers was extremely high and I was impressed by the entire evening. Congratulations should go to Qiana Ram the lead organiser, and the Executive producers, Thomas Ru, Smarchriya Rajesh, Nayomi Thiagarajh, Nick Goggi and Ngaire Wiki for the leadership they showed bringing this evening together.
The year is certainly marching on, and for our seniors they will have approximately 25 periods per subject before they reach the end of their school year. This is not a lot of time and they need to use it wisely to ensure that they get their internal assessments completed as well as prepare for their externals. For some of our students who are not as engaged as they might be, the whakatauki above provides good advice, when it comes to study “a little is better than none” On a positive note, with 60% of internals completed, only 12% are at the Not Achieved level. This is ahead of where we were last year, and last year we had some of our best results ever. The difference though, is that students are not eligible for recognition credits like they were during COVID times and they will need the full 80 credits to achieve their qualifications.
Last year we undertook significant property work around the school, which included building the new staffroom, and demolishing the Library. For a variety of reasons this work came to a holt, which left us with no library and no way forward. I am very pleased to report that JasMax has been working with the Ministry of Education (Te Mahau) to create a new masterplan for the school, and this will be presented to them next week. It is our hope that we will get the go ahead in the near future to start the new design work for a large number of our buildings. More immediately though we plan to upgrade our B Block toilets and refurbish the Pavillion.
As mentioned, the end of the term is not too far away. While our focus is on ensuring our students are well prepared for NCEA we still have some exciting extra-curricular activities available. These include: Tongan Language Week starting September 4, the Year 10 Wa Ako Show Case, Fiafia Night (September 9), Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori starting September 11, the NOSCARS (September 20) and the Year 11 Semi- Formal.
I wish you all the best as we close out the term,
Ngā manaakitanga
Grant Jones