Comments from the Principal

Kia ora tatou
Our Year 7-10 Whanau Evening is to be held on Monday evening. Your children will all attend a session with John Parsons, cyber-safety expert, during the day, and he is presenting for parents between 7pm and 8pm. After this will be an opportunity to meet your child’s form teacher and learning tutor and hear about information that will shape your child’s year at school.
Although this is primarily for parents of year 7-10 students, we welcome any parents and community members to John’s presentation in the hall at 7pm. There will be refreshments in the hall from 6:30pm and we look forward to seeing as many of your there as possible.
We have now had ‘Bring Your Own Device’ in school for four years which means that all Year 7 – 10 students have a digital device that they use within their curriculum learning. Being part of the digital world is inevitable for our young people and it is important that they learn to place themselves respectfully within that world. Their attitudes, values, boundaries and manners should be no different in the digital world than in the real world. However, it is certainly harder to protect them from the world when it is coming to them through digital means rather than them entering that wider world when they are prepared for it. This is where the values you instill as parents and whanau, and the expectations that we make clear in our school community, will hold them in good stead. As both a principal and as a mother, I do worry about our young people accepting what they see and read on social media as being ‘fact’ and the way the world works, just because it has come through that forum. Now, more than ever, we need to challenge our children about their belief systems and encourage critical thinking and discernment about what they engage with in the digital world.
Thank you to everyone who came along to watch, help or support our Athletics Day on Monday. The weather did not make the going easy, but as a staff we were thrilled with the positive, persevering attitudes we saw in all the students. It was great to have everyone dressed (or painted!) in their house colours, and the house gazebos bought by the PTFA certainly were a blessing considering the weather. I am pleased to say that McAuley’s gazebo is fixed now and will definitely be ready for the next event.
The athletics field and beyond was well restored in time for sports after taking baleage off the field again this year, thanks to Property Manager Ray Shanks and Paul Corcoran who mows our field. While not the most beautiful sight over summer, the baleage does provide us with much needed funding every year. You can be assured that this money goes into programming and resourcing for your children and this year we are looking at this helping to fund acceleration classes for groups of children from years 7-10. We are very grateful to Peter Chisholm and his business CMC Contracting for making the baleage free of charge again this year, and to Peter Corcoran for tidying up the field ready for close mowing again afterwards. Thank you also to the rugby committee for coordinating the process and finding a buyer for the baleage so it was moved quickly. We are very grateful for the ongoing community help and support that strengthens us as a school. 
Nga mihi

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