Principal's News

Parent Teacher Interviews: A reminder that Wednesday 3rd August is our second parent teacher interview afternoon of the year, and all parents/caregivers are strongly encouraged to make appointments with their children's teachers. These interviews are crucial opportunities to find out how your child is progressing, and what support can be provided to ensure that they are on track to succeed. For seniors, there are only 12 weeks of school before senior prize-giving and many have quite a lot of work to catch up on. 

Students' science fair projects will be on display during this time at the Maungaturoto Country Club so please pop in to see the wonderful science work that our students have been working on.

School Ball: Our senior school ball was held in the school hall on Thursday 21st July. The theme was 'Hollywood' and Ms Meachin and her ball committee did an incredible job getting everything set up for the evening. The students certainly made the effort to dress up in style, and I was impressed with their overall conduct during the evening. 

Open Day: Our annual Open Day is coming up quickly - Thursday the 11th of August. We have been promoting this day to our feeder schools so please mark this date in your calendars if you have children intending on coming to Otamatea High School next year. Open Day is a fun, interactive day that showcases many of the exciting subjects that we offer here, and is very popular with our visiting primary school students.

Work Experience for Year 10s: There will be no school for year 10s on the 11th August. This is their annual work experience day. Year 10s are expected to arrange, with the support of their parents/caregivers and whānau, a day working alongside somebody, in an area that they have an interest in. It could be a family member, a neighbour or friend. Please contact Mrs van den Berg, our careers advisor, should you have any questions about this day.

Staff Only Day: Please put Tuesday 16th August in your diaries. This is another Ministry of Education allocated staff only day designed for secondary school teachers to continue their preparations for the extensive changes to NCEA and the national curriculum that are being introduced over the next few years.

Enrolment Scheme: The Ministry of Education (MOE) has now completed their consultation process on the proposed enrolment scheme, and received over 90 responses. As a result, we have been advised that the MOE will be making some changes to the proposed enrolment scheme and will be putting this back out to our communities for a second round of consultation early next month. I will be talking more about this at our Open Day on the 11th of August.

Board Elections: These are coming up soon. Nominations are now open and close on the 17th August.  If you are interested in finding out more about being a board member, please come along to our next meeting on Tuesday 2nd August at 6pm in the staff room. This will be a good opportunity to see governance in action, meet the current board members and ask questions about what the role involves.

COVID and masks: A reminder that we still have a high number of COVID cases in our communities. Students and staff are strongly encouraged and supported to wear masks at school, especially over the next four weeks. Positive cases and household contacts still need to isolate for seven days, and sick students, even if negative, must stay at home until they are symptom free. Remember, all students 12 years and older need to continue wearing masks on the buses to and from school. This is nationally mandated for all public and school transport.

Student Success: Congratulations to Rowan Deacon who recently participated in the Christchurch International Cup, a major youth football tournament held in New Zealand. Rowan's team did incredibly well, reaching the final (out of 16 teams), claiming the silver medal. Rowan  was also awarded the Golden Glove trophy for best goalkeeper in the tournament even though this is not his usual position. Well done Rowan! Congratulations also to Sarah Campbell-Winter who has been accepted into Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington’s 2022 HIWA Programme. HIWA is a week-long scholarship programme for Māori students who are in their final year of study at school. The purpose of this programme is for students to experience being a student at Victoria University of Wellington, as well as living in Wellington City. Well done Sarah! Online Safety: We are seeing an increase in the number of young students (often girls) engaging in insulting, rude and other harmful behaviour online - almost always via a social media platform. Although these usually occur outside of school hours, our teachers are often the ones left trying to sort out the fallout from this online conduct. Parents/caregivers are the front line of defense when it comes to online safety. Please read the following advice from Netsafe to ensure you have the strategies and tools needed to help you talk to your child about this. Ngā mihi Dirk Smyth