Kia ora,
Welcome to Term 4.
I hope everyone had an opportunity over the school holiday break to enjoy some rest and relaxation. This week brought a very warm welcome back to our students and staff, and we look forward to a busy and exciting term ahead.
As we are all aware, our school is still operating under Alert Level 2 status and today (Friday), the Prime Minister introduced us more formally to the concept of the ’Traffic Light’ system, which will be used in the near future. Over the next short period of time, the school will be looking into the details of what this means for us, and how we may operate in the future.
Last Thursday the school celebrated the inaugural Dance and Drama Awards. Unfortunately due to Alert Level 2 criteria, this was a student only event, which was also filmed to be shared with, at a later date, the award recipients’ families, and whānau. On Tuesday 26th, we will be holding the Sports Awards evening, and will move into the field of live streaming for the first time. We hope this goes some way to ensuring our community can enjoy the event, given the current conditions in which we need to operate. We are actively working through the range of possibilities that we may be able to use for the other celebratory events that are coming up. Acknowledging student success, and being able to celebrate it, is a very special and important part of school life. I am sorry that under the current COVID conditions we cannot share these events together at a venue in person. I thank you, and appreciate your understanding of the situation.
In terms of the Senior Prize giving, we are currently exploring all possibilities to potentially enable us to have an audience present while meeting the Ministry of Health’s external venue gathering criteria. We know how important celebrating this event together will be, in particular, for our staff, community, and students who are finishing their schooling this year. We will keep you informed as soon as possible, about any significant progress we make.
PROPERTY UPDATE
Over the holidays, significant progress has be made in terms of getting our Partial Rebuild underway. This is a very exciting step, and something we have been looking forward to for a very long time. Last Monday brought a quick and sudden change, in that after many years of talking and planning, we suddenly needed to fence off the grass area in front of the J Block classrooms. This is in preparation for the movement of all F Block prefab classrooms, which will be moved once the seniors go on exam leave in November. Next week I hope to be able to share with you a 3D fly-through link, that gives a fairly reasonable representation of the new buildings, and potential landscaping.
As we complete Week 1, it is timely, to give a boost of encouragement to senior students to complete those last internal assessments, and to prioritise their focus on the upcoming exams.
I hope that you have an opportunity to enjoy the long weekend.
Ngā mihi nui
Jeff Smith
Principal