Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Next Friday, our senior students will be beginning their exam leave. This will last from the 23rd to the 30th August and will be followed on the following Monday by Teacher's Only day.

This timing seems very odd, so I am taking this opportunity to explain it to you. Firstly, our teachers only day is a mandated TOD. We usually choose to take this on the Monday of Tournament Week as that is usually a disrupted week anyway.

With regards to the timing of examinations, by adding the IGCSE in Year 11 we are now bound to the same timelines as the rest of the countries in the world who undertake Cambridge examinations. The Year 11 Mathematics examination will be held on the first day of Term 4, as it is on the same date all over the world. As we are also offering NCEA examinations in selected subjects, we are combining both sets of exams in our upcoming derived grade examinations. In order to have enough time and space to create derived grade examinations for both systems, we have had to take the Friday of next week as well as the following normal Term 3 examination week. By pushing these forward, we are ensuring that we are allowing a greater period for revision and study leading up to exams than usual. We believe that this added to the purposeful use of the study periods we have provided all year for students will enable them to meet their potential in either system and across all year levels.

This week we received the results from the Cambridge English Literature course which we embarked on last year as a trial run. The results were excellent. Of the small group who sat (18 students) 16 of them achieved a B or above (a D is a pass in Cambridge) with 3 of them achieving A Star results which ranks them as the best in the world at their level.

Earlier in the week the SLT put together a pack for Year 11 students with the examination time table, a letter from myself and a wall planner study guide to help support students to create a study plan.

If your Year 12 or 13 student would like a copy of this planner, please ask them to pick one up from the office.

I would like to thank Lorena Marshall for this beautiful shot. You will see more of her amazing work in our school magazine. There are still a number of these that have not been collected from last year, so if you have paid for one as a family, please ensure it is picked up from the office.

Have a lovely weekend

God Bless

Jo

 

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Welcome to Term three! Term three is a time of consolidation and consultation as students and their families look forward to completing the year's assessment tasks and planning for the year ahead.

Mr Herbst has been doing a lot of work to ensure that the nuts and bolts of Cambridge are in place and our PN staff Mrs De Souza and Mrs O' Neill are doing the same for our NCEA entries.

It has been great to see the parents and caregivers who were able to attend our student led conferences tonight. It is always worthwhile for our young people to be able to talk about how they feel they are getting on with their studies and their school environment with our staff and supported by whānau.

I would like to invite any families who were not able to make it, who have concerns about their students to feel free to reach out to their child's teachers at any time. Whilst we set this time aside as a matter of course, we are happy to hear from families whenever the need arises.

The third term goes by very quickly and with the addition of the Cambridge examination period this year, we are facing a shorter than normal term four for senior students before they are into examination mode. If you have any concerns around Cambridge or NCEA, or if you feel your student is not where they need to be, please check with us sooner rather than later.

Those enrolled in Level 1 NCEA courses need to be aware that because of the changes made to NCEA, external examinations are making up a large component of the course and must be attended. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at how we award excellence in the Year 11 cohort given the mixture of NCEA and Cambridge that most students are doing and the emphasis on external examinations and assessments in NCEA. At this stage we are thinking there will be a minimal number of A or B grades needed, Excellence endorsements in NCEA and in addition, how students achieved in RE will also likely be a factor as that is the one subject all students take. We will clarify this in the coming days but at this stage that is the most likely scenario.

Have a great weekend everyone.

God Bless

Jo