Principal's Message

I hope all is well in your respective bubbles and that the positives that come with lockdown have been yours to enjoy this week. We all anxiously await the decisions that will be revealed tomorrow about what next week will look like. In the meantime, it appears that online learning has been going smoothly in most cases, and the systems we used and then reviewed last year have again held us in good stead for a fairly seamless transition into the remote learning environment.

When planning online learning, it is a tricky balance to get it just right when we are doing our best to consider a variety of family circumstances, the wellbeing of all students and the different learning needs at this time of year between juniors and seniors, and the wellbeing of everyone involved. Therefore, I would like to give a huge thanks to our wonderful staff who are working very hard at home to keep all these balls in the air. Many of our staff have young families at home and are trying to care for their own children as well as 100 others every day! And to all of you working from home and supporting your children in their learning – thank you. Let’s hope we return to ‘normal’ as soon as possible.

Last night, NZQA announced some changes for senior assessment, and you will find a summary of these in this week’s newsletter. The flow on effects of changes to the annual school calendar are significant, so please keep an eye on date changes as the year goes on.

Yesterday, I sent all our parents and whānau an email of invitation to a wellbeing seminar we are holding this evening just for the adults in our college community. This is advertised again within this newsletter. Adrienne Buckingham will present an online wellbeing webinar with a few important points to consider about the challenges of family life in lockdown. She is also hosting a student wellbeing webinar on Friday at lunchtime. All students have been sent an email about this. If you think this is something your child would benefit from, please encourage them to join in. Both zooms will only be about 15-20 minutes long because we know that zoom fatigue does not help wellbeing!

It is very disappointing that the annual secondary schools’ tournament week has been cancelled. We have senior students who will be missing out on this pinnacle of the sporting year for the second time. Sometimes it can be hard to keep perspective at times like this, but I encourage all our students to step back and look at the bigger picture. The following well-known Prayer for Serenity is also important for times like this.

‘God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

Nāku, nā