Principal's Message

Welcome back to term four and I can assure you the next nine weeks will go by quickly! For our staff at this time of year, it really does feel like there needs to be a foot in both years. We are currently planning for next year, timetabling, budgeting, confirming staffing, determining strategic direction, and reviewing operations, while keeping the momentum going for term four and planning for all the various events that traditionally occur with the final term of the academic year upon us. I am thrilled with our enrolment numbers for 2024, and while some of the associated planning can then provide a new challenge, I am proud that our college is seen in such a positive light in Dunedin and beyond. We will have the biggest intake of new students across all year levels in many years, indicating that the wider community is aware that our systems, programmes and approaches are supporting academic, social, faith, and pastoral needs of our young people. As always, I thank the staff who continually strive to make this place the best it can be for everyone associated with it.

Yesterday at assembly I spoke about courage. This is a word we don’t often explicitly mention any more. Rather, we talk about being brave, or using our values, or ‘just getting on with it’, but I think that courage should have a more important place in our vocabulary. Courage is required to live our values, because often the popular choice is not always the right choice of action, particularly when you are a teenager and social kudos often trump one’s moral compass. It has been very important to look after our young people in a more protective way during the covid period of pressure and instability, but it is very important that we now move them into a courageous phase once again. Giving new things a go once again, spreading one’s wings further in the community, looking on future possibilities with a positive mindset … we need to return to our courageous selves. Courage is also important at this time of year when students are making choices about next year. Leaving school and moving into the unknown, whether tertiary or employment opportunities, takes courage. For our school leavers, they are experiencing mixed emotions. Places in university halls have been decided, scholarships attained, and ‘life after school’ beckons. In speaking with one of our year 13s yesterday, it is very obvious that they are going to miss school and what has been their educational and social home for the past seven years.

I look forward to seeing many of you at various awards ceremonies in the next few weeks. We began with our new Sports and Cultural Blues evening last night for students and their whānau. It was great to hear from speaker, John Rendall, ex-Kavanagh College student, who is now the Head of Technology and Innovation at Animation Research. The audience enjoyed hearing of John’s experiences with the America’s Cup, PGA graphics, and the development of their sports application, Visual Eye, during the covid lockdown. I really enjoyed John’s comment that there is no such thing as a mistake because he prefers to look at mistakes as opportunities for innovation. There has certainly been courage involved in many of his company’s decisions! It was important to formally recognise our many students who have been recognised regionally and nationally for their performance, cultural and sporting prowess.

We wish our NZ U17 Women’s Handball team members, Angie Quinn, Aya Oseki, Bella Anderson, Isla Simonsen, Nuala Kelly and Therese Till all the best as they compete at the IHF Trophy Oceania competition, in New Caledonia.

Father, creator of all things,
we thank you for all the gifts you have given us.
We thank you especially for the individual
talents and interests
you have chosen to distribute to each one of us.

Encourage us to see the value in other people
and to convince them of their own worth.
Continue to guide, strengthen us, and give us courage,

Amen

Ngā manaakitanga