Comments from the Principal

Tena koutou katoa
Spring in Southland!  It is certainly a wonderful place to live when we have beautiful weather weeks like we have just had. I hope that all our farming families are benefiting from this good spell of weather and I do hope that as lambing and calving draw to an end over the next few weeks that the weather will continue to be in your favour. Students were told this week that summer uniform will be optional from now until the end of the term and most have already taken up this opportunity.
Te Wiki o te Reo Maori (Maori Language Week) has come to an end. While many schools do not have the resource nor capacity to teach te reo, kapahaka and tikanga (Maori customs, culture and ways of being), we are extremely fortunate to have Vanessa Edwards leading this within St Peter’s and Kalida Hamilton working alongside her tutoring the Kapahaka group. On Monday at assembly, Vanessa gave a presentation that included mihi (greetings) from our year 7&8 students, and their pepeha (a greeting that includes identity and knowledge of iwi and place), along with a slide show which displayed the tikanga that is happening at school here. At the conclusion, and after consultation, Mr Darren Jack who leads the vision for cultural inclusiveness at St Peter’s College was presented with a greenstone (pounamu) and the name Matua Darren, as recognition of his great work in this area. Congratulations, Darren and thank you for helping to make our vision a reality. We were indeed also blessed to have our long-term supporters and kaumatua, Mr John Rogerson and his wife Grace, present for this special assembly.
Thank you to all those students who brought along food cans this week to contribute to the Salvation Army’s ‘Cans for Good’ collection. We thought this was an appropriate action for Social Justice Week, as organised by Luke Roughan and Marion Frei. Classes will have also been working with a focus on this year’s theme – ‘Enabling Communities’.
Tuesday, 25th September, will be Breakfast for our Girls. This is an opportunity for our girls to get together, enjoy each other’s company over breakfast, and discuss topics important to them. Jenny Mitchell (Head Girl, 2016) will be talking with the girls about some of her experiences at school and upon leaving school. All girls from year 7 – 13 are welcome to join us for this breakfast.
We were saddened to hear of the sudden death of one of our ex-pupils, and sibling of one of our current students, this week. This family is foremost in our minds at present, along with other members of our school community who are experiencing significant illness. As always, should your child need extra support during difficult times like these, please let us know. Part of our pastoral role is to look after the wellbeing of all our school community, and it is a privilege to help where we can. Please let us keep all these people in our prayers this coming week.
Nga mihi nui, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

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