Kia ora e te whaanau,
Good afternoon Parents/Caregivers,
I am writing to you from the middle of our prizegiving season, with our Maaori celebration, Sports Awards and Arts Awards evenings this week. Next week we will have the final assembly (during period 2), senior prizegiving on Tuesday and Year 13 graduation ceremony on Wednesday. It really is a wonderful time of the year when we can acknowledge the incredible success of our students and the hard work of CHS staff and our community in providing them with many opportunities to excel. It is particularly special moment for me in farewelling our Year 13s this year as we started at CHS in the same year, way back in 2019.
Today, I want to draw particular attention to the senior prizegiving, starting at 7pm on Tuesday 31st October. This event is different to previous years. We are moving into the new gym and are excited for the extra space this allows us. We have been able to install additional staging and create a great venue to showcase our talented students. Unlike previous years, where space was at a premium, we are now able to send out an open invite to all who are interested in seeing this fantastic evening of performances and celebration of the success of our students. It will be a great night and I look forward to seeing you there. For those of you not able to attend, we will be recording the evening and pushing this link out on Wednesday afternoon via Facebook and email.
We will also host the graduation ceremony on Wednesday in the new gym. This is for parents of Year 13 students as we acknowledge their graduation from CHS.
And all of this means we will be farewelling our senior students as they head off to sit their NCEA examinations. Years 9 and 10 still have a lot on to complete the year with junior exams, Year 10 camps and our Year 9 activities day. The end of the year certainly is racing up on us!
There are a couple of significant events to share with you before the year finishes. Firstly, it is the plans for our new S Block. We will bless the building on the 11 December in a ceremony with our mana whenua, Ngaati Korokii Kahukura and Ngaati Haua and invited guests. I plan to hold an open session early in 2024 for the community to come past and view the new building. I will share details of this with you in January.
Finally today, it is a reference to the change in government. This has been signalled to come with an impact on education although no definite details are available yet in terms of the immediate impact. I will communicate this with you as soon as I have more information about the changes and a timeline for these changes.
Kind regards,
Ngaa mihi nui,
Greg Thornton
Principal
