Principal's Pānui
24 March 2023
This week we had our first visit from the Education Review Office (ERO). The process undertaken now differs from that followed in the past – instead of a one off visit, we partner with ERO over a period of 3 years in order to work together toward continuous improvement of our school. A first report to our community will published in the middle of the year which will provide context for the next three years. All schools in New Zealand will be on the same three-year continuous improvement framework.
Our Onehunga High School Sports Exchange went ahead on Thursday. It was great to get across there for a couple of hours to see a variety of our teams in action. Our Premier Netball Team were narrowly defeated, but they are a team that obviously enjoy playing for each other and their coach and their second half performance in particular showed real promise for the season ahead.
Despite playing well, our Girls Volleyball Team went down by a very narrow margin. Our Boys carried their form from last week into the game and won their tie. Likewise, our Girls Rugby Team finished on the right side of the scoresheet, beating Onehunga 32-23. At this stage, the exchange was 4-2 to Onehunga High School.
Both of our Basketball Teams won their matches, pushing the overall result to 4-4 and ensured that Massey High School retained the inter-school trophy.
All teams played hard and played fair, and all students, staff, and coaches that travelled represented our school well (as always). Our thanks to Onehunga High School for being fantastic hosts. The exchange also provided me with an opportunity to touch base with their new Principal who started at the beginning of this Term.
The return of exchanges such as this is a welcome one – sport is an incredibly important component of many students school lives – it develops teamwork, a sense of belonging, resilience, and provides avenues to engage socially with others. Many of our teams are now involved in pre-season games in preparation for a very full Winter sports calendar.
Thursday afternoon saw us evacuate the Bruce Candy Science Centre as a precautionary measure following the discovery of a smell which indicated possible shorting in the electrical system. The fault was traced to a burnt-out transformer behind a grow lamp in our horticultural section of the block. This has been replaced, and other components in the greenhouse have been replaced. Our students that were disrupted for the final period of the day were outstanding as they waited on our field. As mentioned on the day, we erred on the side of caution while the fault was traced and fixed. No other part of the school was affected.
We then finished Thursday with the Senior Dance Showcase – our Dance Department have always produced outstanding showcases, and Thursday was the latest of those. It is our first major event to take full advantage of the recently refurbished sound system in the Bruce Ritchie Performing Arts Centre. It was wonderful to see the talent from Year 11, 12, and 13 across various genres of dance. As always, we had a capacity crowd.
Contact with Parents and Caregivers
You will have received notice of a second proposed national strike by PPTA members, the national executive has set the date of the proposed strike as Wednesday 29th May. As mentioned, the proposed strike is more than likely to go ahead. However, we will update our community should the strike be called off.
Next week sees our first opportunity for parents and caregivers to meet with subject and/or tutor teachers at our Parent Teacher Meetings on Thursday 30th March.
Finally, please ensure that you complete and return the dietary information form if you have not already done so. The information is vital to ensure that our suppliers of school lunches can provide lunches which best meet the needs of our students safely. We have been talking with students at assemblies this week about the overall concept of the healthy lunches in school’s programme – in particular around showing Manaakitanga for the both the kai, and for the environment in which it will be consumed.