Principals Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

I thought I would choose this amazing photo taken by Mr Devereaux for the blog today as it reminds us that there is always something good that can be found in things that are bad. As we move into the winter season with all of its challenges of colder weather, coughs , colds and dark nights, we are also blessed with these amazing sunrises and sunsets.

This week we welcomed Mrs Strauss and her husband to our school. Mrs Strauss is a highly qualified mathematics teacher and is also a skilled netball coach. We have really enjoyed getting to know her this week and we are sure our students are going to love having her as part of our community.

This week we also had the Life Education bus in the College speaking with our students about drinking, smoking, vaping and making good choices around these. In Ball and Waitaki Week season, the school works very hard to ensure that our senior students understand their responsibilities to each other at parties. If your young person is attending parties, please ensure that they have discussed with you how they will keep themselves and their friends safe at these events. The College does not organize or endorse post event parties. Responsibility for running parties and allowing students to attend are solely the responsibility of the parent community.

Well done to those brave souls who ran the Cross Country this week. Congratulations to Mr Hose and the team for their excellent organization of the event. It has been a busy time for the PE department over the last week having just completed the Year 12 Bike Trip as well.

Have a great weekend.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today we celebrated Pink Shirt Day in the College which is an international movement aimed at bringing attention and awareness to bullying.

Bullying is a problem in all schools to a greater or lesser degree as young people work through the complex emotions that come with transitions, discovering who they are and navigating friendships.

In the teenage years, the brain goes through what is known as a 'pruning process' which is like a shutting down of parts of the brain. This process means that young people, much more than adults, are driven by the emotional centers in their brains rather than the frontal cortex, which is the place where our ability to reason is located.

In a nutshell what this means is that teenagers are more likely to react emotionally to perceived slights and so in turn may bully others back using aggressive emotions or they may withdraw and feel persecuted accessing those emotions which make them feel as if everyone is against them. Our job as teachers and parents is to help our young people to deal with these processes by helping them to reason through the issues as they present them, for example asking "Are you sure that that is what that person meant?" or encouraging them to speak face to face with others rather than relying on impersonal methods such as texting.

Our school runs a Restorative Practice discipline system which supports young people and families to work through these issues. This system takes time and is forgiveness based which is in line with our Catholic character. It is sometimes hard for families and even teachers to understand why we can't just move directly to punishing young people if they do wrong, in other words, "bully the bullies". In our College we focus more on the mantra of "hurt people hurt people" and we respond in that spirit. For more information on Bullying please look up our Pastoral Tab, look up School TV and click on the Bullying tab.

Have a great weekend

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

It was wonderful to see the number of bright young faces who attended our Open Day yesterday and our Open Night last night. Every year when I see our older students acting as tour guides for our potential enrolments for the following year it really hits home just how quickly the secondary school years fly by and how much our young people change in those short five years. To all of you parents and caregivers out there wrestling with the decision of where to send your young person, I wish you all the best.

Anyone walking around the grounds at the moment will notice that there is a lot of building and maintenance activity occurring at the moment. We are very conscious after the repeated flood events which have hit the North Island of our need to ensure that we minimize the potential impact of any flooding events over the course of the winter. To that end Ken McCallum and his Construction class have been laying extra drainage and the Foundation has initiated major work on the hill behind the hostel to clear debris and insert drainage. I would like to thank Ross Robertson and Eugen Dupu as well as the grounds' staff and contractors for all of their work on this so far.

In addition to this we are embarking on a programme to plant more intensive native bush areas to help manage soil erosion. The added bonus of this is that our tui population is increasing every year and is a beautiful sound track to our school environment.

Tui Call

At this stage, it looks as if next week will bring more industrial action with years 9 and 10 both being flagged as being rostered home. We will also have our Year 12 PE class away on their bike trip and will finish the week with our Pink Shirt Mufti day on Friday. Please keep a close eye on notices as they appear over the course of the next few days.

Have a great weekend

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today we were blessed with a beautiful day for our parent - teacher interviews. We were thrilled with the turnout of caregivers despite our not having an evening option this year due to industrial action. This is a great time of year for families to speak with their young person about the goals and ambitions they have for the year and to identify any potential issues before we start Term 2 which is traditionally very busy.

I would like to thank those parents and caregivers who supported us on ANZAC day by bringing students down to march in the street parade. This is a time of remembrance of the fallen but I believe it is also a very important part of marking who we are as a community. The rallying call of ANZAC Day is one that ties our community together as well as to those who have passed before. For our young people to be a part of this is, I believe, very important.

At the College we celebrated our own ANZAC service on the 26th. As with the actual day, it was heartening to see those students involved in ATC and the Pipe Band contributing, not only to our service but to the Waitaki services as well. I thank Mr Derek Beveridge and Mr Paul Olsen for the work they do with our young people in these groups and for bringing them to our service each year.

On Monday I will be speaking with the students about uniforms. Last term I signaled that Deans will begin confiscating jewelry or items of uniform which do not meet our code. These will be held at the office for caregivers to collect when they are ready to do so. I would ask please that caregivers speak with their students about their uniform to avoid this becoming an issue.

Teachers unions have signaled further industrial action for this term. Please check out our strike action notices so you are aware of what days your young person is rostered home so that you can make appropriate arrangements.

I am looking forward to a busy and positive Term 2!

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Happy Easter to our SKC Family. Yesterday we began the Easter celebration with reading the Stations of the Cross in period five for Holy Thursday. I would like to thank Mrs Herbst who put a massive amount of time and effort into the celebration and also her team of Prefects for presenting our Stations of the Cross with sincerity and devotion. Lena Dupu and Samuel Plieger did an outstanding job maintaining the flow of the readings and our students appreciated the effort. I believe that ending a hectic term with those moments of peace were incredibly healing for us all.

You will notice that we have started advertising our Student Led Conferences. We have taken notice of the feedback we got from the community after the last SLC's which indicated that you appreciated being able to speak to subject teachers and so we are maintaining that format. However, and I appreciate this will not be welcome news, we are only able to open these up during the day time as the industrial action being undertaken by teachers at the moment requires them to only work the hours they are paid for which is between 8:30am and 4:30pm. This is a difficult time for everyone concerned as we want to support our teachers and we also want to please our community so we are juggling the situation as best as we can. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

May the blessings of the season be upon you all.

Jo 🙏

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

This morning we were visited by the extremely talented Mr Robert Wilson who bought the scale model he has made of The Castle to school for us. Taking nearly 700 hours and 8 months, Mr Wilson has built this exact model replica of the Castle using MDF and 3D printing techniques. The model is absolutely phenomenal and will eventually be for sale. It is perfectly detailed even down to having the exact number of bricks of the real thing! Kara will post more detailed photos on our facebook and Alumni pages of this very special piece of Art.

This week has seen some wonderful sporting achievements with our cricket team finally breaking the drought and winning the local senior competition and our rowing teams have been doing very well at the Maadi competition. This Sunday and Monday we will continue the theme as we hold our Catholic Senior Quad tournament. I would like to thank Ms Clapperton for the massive amount of work she has done to bring this event to fruition.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Mr Barry Rusbatch who is the husband of our Business Manager, Colleen. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family at this time.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

 God Bless

Jo Walshe

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

The day started early for me today as I attended the farewell breakfast for our Maadi Cup Rowers which was held in the Galley cafe on the waterfront. It was a great privilege to watch the dawn break in this beautiful part of the world in the company of so many driven, diligent and dedicated people; as coaches, students and whānau all gathered to wish our North Otago teams the very best of luck.

It has been a rich and varied sporting week this week as our Volleyball players once again had fantastic success at the Aoraki Championships and our Cricket First XI anticipate what must surely be finals glory this weekend! I would like to thank Ms Clapperton, Mrs Laragua, Mr Hose, Mr Smith and Mr Fowler for the tireless work they do in ensuring that these codes are supported and that our students get exposure on the regional and national scenes.

Finally, I would like to pass on to whānau a message from the Catholic Education Office. As you will know, school fees are due 31st March. At $950.00, the charges for St Kevins College is one of the lowest fees for a Catholic secondary school in the country. This fee covers the costs that the government does not cover with regards to the non - integrated aspects of our school. St Kevin's College does not collect this money, this is collected by the Dunedin Diocese. If you are having issues with payment or if you need to make arrangements to pay this fee over time, please contact the Dues Office as soon as possible at the following email or phone number:

Email: dues@cdd.org.nz or telephone 03 2220006 

The Catholic Education Office is more than happy to work with you to develop a payment plan that will make paying these fees far more painless.

Thanks to my gorgeous Year 9 models for this great picture of Science class.

Have a great weekend.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

I have a mixed bag of news this week, so thought I would share this amazing picture of our College taken from the Redcastle Door by our Alternative Education Learning Assistant Lorena Marshall. Lorena has taken many of the pictures we have used in our marketing materials over the past few months and I think you will agree she has an extraordinary gift for capturing the beauty we are surrounded with here at the College. I would like to thank her for sharing her gifts and talents with us.

Covid has continued to spread through the College this week with our having ten students away as confirmed cases today and one staff member with the virus. Thank you for your vigilance in testing and for your communication around absences.

On Thursday 16th March, our staff members who are part of the PPTA union will be going on strike along with their primary school colleagues. This industrial action is in response to a breakdown in their collective bargaining for this round. The School Board has opted to remain 'open for supervision'. This means that we will be technically open if you need a place for your students to be on Thursday if they are under the age of 14 and do not have anyone to supervise them at home. There will not be any instruction provided, as we will only have a skeleton staff on board of teachers who are not in a union or members of other unions. If anything changes in this regard next week, we will let you know.

On Wednesday, we farewelled Father Wayne from our College as he moves into retirement. All of our students took the opportunity to express their gratitude to him for his service. We wish him all the best for the future.

We launched the 'Whānau Reading Initiative this week, keep a lookout for that on social media and in the notices to find out what it is all about.

God Bless

Jo.

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

As we head into the middle of the first term, I thought I would take this opportunity to update you on our Strategic and Annual planning and what that means for our priorities moving forward. Firstly, thank you to those of you who responded to my survey last year about our proposed Strategic Plan, having community voice is important for us as a College to ensure we are on the right track.

Our Strategic and Annual plans can be found on our super new website under "policies" along with our complaints policy and child protection policies.

In a nutshell our strategic plan over the next five years focuses on the following three things:

1. Ensuring our Special Character is implemented not only as church based teaching and learning, but that we take our understanding of the message of Christ into everything we do through our FIRE values. That means we don't just talk about being good people, we actively try to practice forgiveness, generosity, compassion and patience in our dealings with young people and their families and that we passionately and unreservedly stand up for what we believe is right, even if that ruffles feathers now and then, or even causes conflict.

2. We will focus on ensuring that our students leave school with the academic skills to manage themselves in our increasingly complex world and that our systems will not stop them from reaching their full potential. This means being as flexible as we can to developing courses and opportunities that develop the whole person.

3. We will implement the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum in a way which promotes community well being, understanding and togetherness. We see the curriculum as a call to all of our community to become familiar with the indigenous history, people and customs of our region so that we can better understand all of our individual places in the history of this land and in our own equally valued stories. These understandings are essential if we are to move respectfully into the future and meet the challenges it presents.

This featured picture is from our swimming sports last week. Well done to everyone who participated!

Have a great weekend

God bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

I thought I would post this gorgeous picture of our junior Equestrian class which was taken by Kara Cox earlier this week. This class is taught by the lovely Ingela Anklew who also coaches our International students. It has been fabulous to have our International students return to the school and to see our arena start to get busy again as the term kicks off. Ingela and Jamie (who teaches our NCEA course) make incredible contributions to our College as do the team of people behind them who are happy to lend us horses for our teen riders and who encourage our riders to challenge themselves in this difficult sport.

Our sports teams have been doing exceptionally well in recent weeks, including our cricket players, rowers and all of our students who took part in our Athletics activities. Sport is a wonderful thing for teaching our young people skills in teamwork, resilience and goal setting as well as the obvious spin off it has for physical and mental health. As we gear up for winter sports trials, please encourage your young person to consider playing a sport.

Sadly, winter will soon be upon us and whilst this may seem like long range thinking I do need to indicate that winter illness, including Covid 19, as well as industrial action in the education sector may see us needing to rotate classes of students home. I am issuing this early warning so that whānau consider the importance of ensuring that their students are at school on the days when they can be. Consistent attendance now may help to mitigate any disruptions that might occur later in the year.

Have a great weekend

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

As we move into the swing of the school year, things should be starting to come together in terms of our students adjusting to the new timetable and routines. Please encourage your young person to use the MUSAC app to help them stay ahead of what is happening. Important notices about events are posted on the MUSAC app 'notices' section. Notifications include things like sports sign ups, changes to the day or one off events like school photographs.

'Managing Self' is one of the Key Competencies in the New Zealand Curriculum and is an important part of growing up for our students. 'Managing self' skills include interpersonal skills such as working in a team or controlling your temper or day to day executive functioning skills such as checking time tables and being prepared with the correct tools. You can help your young person to achieve in this space by supporting them to use our SKC Diary, Google classrooms, email system and even just making good old fashioned lists of things to check before setting off out the gate.

 

A huge part of the success of young people moving through secondary school is having a good relationships with the teaching staff. On Tuesday night we had an excellent turn out of parents and caregivers at our 'Meet the teachers' event. I would like to thank all of you who attended. It was great to reconnect with some old faces and meet so many of our new SKC family.

Have a great weekend - Go The Highlanders!

God Bless Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

It has been wonderful having all of our students back this week, buzzing with news from their holidays and keen to reconnect with friends. Every year when our seniors come back, it is quite amazing how much they seem to grow and change over the holiday period. Looking up at some of the boys I swear were only at my shoulder last term helps to reinforce how quickly this precious time at secondary school goes. It is our real privilege as staff to witness the changes in our young people as they grow from nervous Year 9's into awesome, self possessed, courageous young leaders.

We celebrated that today as we held our Prefect Induction Mass. Despite the incredible heat and the sound of the very large fans we installed in the chapel, the Mass was very special. As part of the Mass, we ask that the prefects take an oath to support the students in our school, that the teachers take a similar oath and finally we ask that the school support our leaders, both staff and students. This concept of mutual respect, dependance and support is the cornerstone of a functioning community. This moment helps us to remember that not one of us can build this community by ourselves, we all bring our own unique contribution.

Head Students Shreysh and MacKenzie

We also celebrated the donation of a beautiful kahu rāki (decorated cloak) by Ms Sara Plunkett to the leadership (both students and teachers) of the school. Sara made this beautiful traditional taonga by harvesting and weaving all of the materials together, researching the patterns and studying local customs. Nola Tippa and David Higgins from Moeraki Rūnanga provided support to Sara on this journey and Nola took part in the celebration of its official welcome today. We thank Sara for this incredible gift.

Have a happy long weekend!

God Bless

Jo