Principal's Message

Greetings, Kia ora, Talofa, Mālō e lelei

I wish all the students a very warm welcome back to school for Term 3. We are well and truly underway – it has been a busy week, and a positive start to the term. Term 3 is a busy and very important term, we have events like the College Open Day, St Dominic’s Day, Bishops Shield, Kavanagh Day, Secondary Schools Music Festival, Career and Course Planning Evening, Mt Aspiring for Year 7/8, Otago Maori & Pacifika Festival and Winter Tournament Week. Later this term we also have the processes to choose our head students and the student representative on the Board of Trustees for 2020.

This term is also a critical term educationally, and it is an important term for all of us to really focus on teaching and learning. This particularly applies to seniors as they are only at school for three weeks of Term 4 before they depart for NZQA exams – so the remaining nine weeks of this term are precious. I encourage students to maintain the focus on their studies and ask you to remind them that there are also school “practice” exams for Seniors from Wednesday 18th September to Tuesday 24 September.

The College has nearly 60 teaching staff and so some changes are inevitable. Mr Tony Pickles won a full-time position at the end of Term 2, so Mr Campbell has assumed responsibility for 8OCB Maths with Mr O'Callaghan also taking on some of the load. Miss Tsukigawa is now on maternity leave and Ms Mbizvo is taking over her Social Studies classes and also taking over the tutor teacher role for 12MEI. Mrs Stewart will be on sick leave for the next eight weeks and Mr Mitchell will be taking her classes.

I also congratulate Mrs Emma Harri,s our HOD English, who has won an Assistant Principals position at another school in Dunedin, starting sometime in Term 4.

Kavanagh College Open Day is Sunday 4th August starting at 2.00pm in the Auditorium. This will be the first opportunity for the community to welcome and hear from new Principal, Kate Nicholson. Kate will be starting here at Kavanagh on Monday 2nd September.

God Bless
Steve Read
Acting Principal