Principal's Message

Last week was all about becoming a learner again for me. I attended our Secondary Principals’ Conference and enjoyed listening, discussing, and learning with colleagues from throughout the country. A common theme discussed by principals up and down the country was the issue of vaping and how to manage this. Just as we had thought that finally smoking had become uncool for teenagers after years and years of education and government policy, we are faced again with the time and effort required to police an ever-increasing number of ‘vapers’ within our schools – and smoking was always easier to detect! Please remind your teenagers at home that recent legislation amended the existing prohibition on smoking at schools to be extended to vaping (for visiting adults also), and that it is illegal to sell or supply vaping products to minors under 18, which includes supplying or sharing vapes with your mates. We will continue to be on the lookout for vaping at Kavanagh and parents will be contacted regarding consequences should this occur.

On Friday, at our Kāhui Ako expo, we had another day of learning. This was a very well organised, professional day where there was something on offer for everyone. Workshops were varied and useful, and we enjoyed the expertise of both our own staff and visiting presenters. Jehan Casinader was an excellent keynote speaker and spoke about his own mental health journey and the importance of changing the narrative for our own future story. I certainly hope that our students’ experience in a Catholic school can also help create a current and future story of gratitude and hope.

It has been a week of celebration for our students representing Kavanagh College. A huge congratulations goes to Manaia Barns who came 3rd in the Otago/Southland Ngā Manu Kōrero competition for a great effort in both the impromptu and prepared speech.

Our Shakespeare troupe headed to Wellington for a weekend of competition and workshops and brought home the ‘Filmic Award’. Well done to these wonderful young thespians!

I had the pleasure of attending the Young Enterprise Group’s marketing pitch at Polsen Higgs last Thursday and was impressed by the response of the judges. We still await results for this, but they do say that things come in threes, so here’s hoping!

I will leave you with this quote from John Peachey, keynote speaker at the SPANZ conference last week, which summarises one of our important jobs at Kavanagh:

“Resilience is not about hardening up; it is about having a safe place to fall”

Warm wishes