Comments from the Principal

Wow!! What great young people we have here at St Peter’s. I am continually very impressed with their commitment to service and pursuing their ideals. It was very special to sit in the audience at the Gore Youth Awards watching so many of our students running the awards night and performing throughout the evening, and others coming up onto the stage to win awards. The list is quite impressive, and I encourage you, as parents, to keep doing what you are doing with your children – it is certainly working!
Similarly, we had many students who took part in the Gold Guitars last weekend either in auditions, being selected for the finals night, or in the busking sections. It is great skill building, no matter what the result, to move out of your comfort zone, to work hard towards a goal and to get back up and dust yourself off when the results don’t go the way you would like them to.  Congratulations to those students who went on to win awards last weekend. Of course, a big congratulations needs to go to our ex-head girl, Jenny Mitchell, who won a Tui Award for her second album. There aren’t many of us who can say we managed that before the age of 21!
Last Friday at Teachers Only Day, our staff had a very fruitful day in professional development learning more about the pedagogy and thinking required for our move to project learning. At the same time, a number of our year 8-10 students joined in for the day working with two visitors from Otago Polytech to discover the different ways to work with project ideas and the possibilities of impact on community. What was special for me, was to see that many of the project ideas had a significant social justice aspect to them. It is heartening that our Catholic environment is so obviously promoting these ideals in our young people.
There is a lot of work happening in terms of fundraising at present. Please remember the Rugby Quiz which is on tonight at the T&C from 6.30pm. This is the main fundraiser for the rugby committee, and I encourage you to go along and enjoy a great night of fun and camaraderie if last years was anything to go by. The PTFA are working hard to run a big fundraiser on the 29th June in the form of an Art Expo. If you are an artist who would like to contribute to this exhibition, please let us know.
This Sunday in the Church we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, the day when the Holy Spirit was bestowed on all the new believers in the early church. Let us remember our commitment as parents of children in a Catholic school, that we also have a duty to encourage our children to experience God’s love and reflect on the importance of faith in our lives.
Stay warm this weekend.

Pentecost Sunday the Churches Birthday. One week after the Ascension, on the 50th day after Easter, the feast of Pentecost is celebrated. Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, which empowered them to go out and begin spreading the Gospel the beginning of the church as we know it.
 
Kate Nicholson

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