Kia ora e te whānau
It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of the first term for 2026. I want to thank all those students who have applied themselves to their studies, worked well with others and lived out our school values of compassion, commitment and community this term. We are blessed as a college with the great students we have, and the reason our school exists is to help form these young people into the person that God has created them to be.
Our school community celebrated St Patrick's Day with a mufti day with the theme of dressing up in green. The life and example of St Patrick is one of service to others and forgiveness. Patrick forgave his captors, the celts, and would return as a missionary to Ireland to spread the Gospel message. Our mufti day raised funds for St Vincent De Paul Society who do so much work to support the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society.
Parents and whānau will be starting to receive feedback from teachers on how your child is progressing with their learning. Students from Year 10 – 13 will be receiving their ATL grades and comments, while Junior students will be receiving their ATL grades. Thank you to those parents of Year 7 & 8 students who have made the time to come in for the student led conferences for these students. The time commitment put in by their teachers to make this happen is greatly appreciated. Subject interviews are being held in term two on the 6th of May.
I need to draw your attention to an issue that has arisen around students coming to and leaving school. Our carpark area is rather busy and can get congested during pick up and drop off times. Students need to use the designated paths next to the driveway to avoid the cars that are coming in and out of the main carpark on Robertson Street. I would also ask that parents who are picking up their children from Kakapo Street use the street parking where possible as this area can also get congested. The School Board will be looking into ways that we can improve the safety of both of these areas moving forward.
On Thursday 19th of March Fr Sani our school chaplain and parish priest joined us to bless the newly upgraded Science and Commerce classrooms as well as the new school van and the building programme site. This now completes the upgrade of the Science area, and the builders have now moved onto what was the hostel games room, admin and tv rooms. These will become classrooms with the games room becoming a Whare Ako for the school. This has come about after requests made at Whānau Māori hui for a dedicated space. The Hokonui Runanga and Mataura Marae have guided us through this process and has now gifted us a name for this space “Te Rangimarie” which roughly means peace. We thank the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin for the recent upgrades to our buildings and the ongoing plan of upgrading our site to better suit the needs of our community.
As we enter into the last week of Lent, a traditional time of examining ways that we can grow closer to God our focus moves towards Easter and the sacrifice of Jesus. Sadly, for many of us as we grow older the significance of this sacrifice sometimes fades with time. I would encourage all members of our community to take the time to give thanks to God for this great sacrifice. To reflect on the fact that Jesus died for each and everyone of us. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
Charity fulfills the law
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