Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

This week has been a very busy one for me personally as I have had a lot of meetings to attend in Dunedin and online as well as having returned on Sunday from the Bishop's Shield competition. The advantage to that however, is that when you are moving between agencies and presenters, it is easy to identify common threads and get a real sense of what is 'on top' for educational stakeholders.

Without a doubt, the major issue being put under the microscope at the moment is school attendance and the consequences of students not attending on a regular basis. The general feeling seems to be that Covid has somehow diluted our urgency around ensuring that our young people attend school. There have always been truants, but the message is that across the country there is a real drop in attendance rates among those students who, in the past, would have been at school 90% of the time which is the indicator the Ministry of Education uses.

In order to help caregivers identify the real attendance of our students, we have moved from posting half days on our reports to posting a whole day percentage. If your young person is not attending school for 90% of the time or more, they are counted as not being in 'regular attendance'.

Whilst Covid isolation rules, immunity debt and subsequent sickness have all played their part, our message to whānau is please make being at school a priority for your young person and if there are barriers for you and / or your student, please let us know how we can help.

Have a great weekend everyone

God Bless

Jo Walshe