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