Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today we celebrated Pink Shirt Day which is a time to focus on the idea of preventing bullying from happening.  The students and staff got into the spirit of the day by dressing in pink and enjoying the positive message of not being a 'bystander', but being an 'upstander' which was reinforced in our chapel liturgy today.  

Bullying can be an extremely challenging issue to tackle and it is becoming more challenging with the rise of social media and the creation of a media culture which sees bullying people as entertainment.  'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' feels like the 21st Century's answer to the Colosseum at times! 

There are also no quick fixes to bullying which is why we favour the 'Restorative Practice' model here at school.  At the heart of that idea is the idea that 'hurt people hurt people'.  We need both the bully and the victim to buy into the process in order to get to the heart of the issue.  For us, this is part of our Catholic spirituality.  When you seek a Catholic education for your student at our College you are opting into that system where we seek to treat the hurt of both victim and perpetrator. It is also at the heart of matauranga māori and part of what it means to reconcile with others in our country.

We are blessed to have excellent practitioners of Restorative Practice here at the College.  RP takes a very long time, a huge amount of emotional energy and a real commitment to the message of Christ.  It is far from the easy option.  I would like to take this opportunity to reassure any families who are given the opportunity to work in a restorative way with our pastoral care team to take the invitation to be part of something which can be incredibly empowering and affirming. 

God Bless

Jo Walshe

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

We have had a great week at the College this week with a lot of interesting things going on. The most important were our Year 9 and 10 retreats which were held at Elephant Rocks and focussed around the theme of "We are St Kevin's College", looking at the idea of our community as being a family. Mr Harris based the experience around the film of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which was CS Lewis' allegorical tale about the Chrisitan journey. That the film had scenes filmed at Elephant rocks helped bring the story and its themes alive. I would like to thank Mr Harris, Mrs Herbst, Mr Devereaux, Mr Farrell and Mrs Dupu for their work with these events.

Next week, there is no school on Monday as we have a 'Teacher Only Day' to look at the changes to NCEA. Also of note is that on Friday (20th of May), we have a mufti day in support of 'Pink Shirt Day' which is a campaign against bullying. The origin of the pink shirt is that there was a situation in Canada a few years ago where a new student came to school wearing a pink shirt. A group of other students bullied him. In response, the 'upstanders' in his class all collaborated the next day to wear pink shirts to school - hence 'Pink Shirt Day'. We encourage all staff and students to get into the spirit of the day, wear pink and be mindful of the harm bullying can cause.

Our Covid 19 situation has seen a slight rise in numbers with 15 students currently infected, 5 isolating and one staff member sick. We are not concerned about this as we expected a rise with the students no longer being required to wear masks but we feel this increase is in line with what most other places are experiencing as restrictions ease.

Have a great 'longer' weekend - for students anyway!

God Bless

Jo Walshe

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Welcome back to Term 2. I spoke at assembly this week about our mission for this term being around trying to re-establish a much more 'normal' school culture where we have the opportunity to mix, perform and compete as well as to open our school once again to whānau. This week we have put that mission into practice by having our Student Led Conferences, our Cross Country and yesterday we enjoyed an afternoon of liturgy and fun to celebrate Edmund Rice Feast Day.

Next week we are inviting all parents new to the College to attend our BBQ on Friday evening and we are also looking forward to our Māori Whānau Hui which will be held in June so please keep an eye open for that notice.

Covid is still in our community, but as restrictions lessen, we are taking every opportunity to re engage with students and families. Today we have 7 students away with Covid and a further 8 isolating. This number has held steadily since the beginning of the week. Over half of our teachers have now had Covid and so we are hoping that the College will be much more settled this term than last.

I would like to finish today with a HUGE congratulations to Camden Burge for the way he ran the Cross Country today. He was an absolute running machine, not only finishing first by a huge margin but then running back to cross the line with his friends! Well done Cam.

Have a great weekend

God Bless

Jo Walshe