Tēnā koutou, e te whānau ki Te Kāreti o te Oneroa o Kahu/Long Bay College.
Last weekend’s Matariki celebrations gave us the opportunity to both reflect on and look ahead into the future, and at the halfway point of our school year, it is an opportunity for all of our community to do similarly.
Over the last few weeks, our students have experienced great success in many aspects of school life. Our rock musicians took home 4 of the 8 awards on offer at the recent Rockquest; our girls’ choir, Stella Voce, competed in the Auckland Big Sing competition and won through to the New Zealand Choral Federation Cadenza for, we believe, the first time in recent memory, if not ever. Cadenza will be held in Rotorua in August. Not to be outdone, our Shakespearean actors have again performed to national acclaim.
In the field of culture, our kapa haka roopu performed brilliantly and in great numbers at the recent Oneroa Kāhui Ako Matariki Festival, and we celebrated our first cultural exchange with Avondale College, which was a great success. Our sports teams continue to go from strength to strength, particularly our junior teams, who are competing very well across Auckland.
We were recently visited by Erica Stanford, Minister of Education, who was very interested in finding out more about our Tino Akoranga initiatives (our educational philosophy). Additionally, we were invited to present to the Auckland Secondary School Principals’ Association on the same topic. This year, we have been visited by several schools from across the nation that are aware of our work and keen to learn more.
Last week we were welcomed by Northcross Intermediate, which was an opportunity to introduce our school to the Year 8 students who will be considering where their high school journey may take them. I was incredibly proud of the staff and students who represented us and who delivered 12 presentations to various classes across the year level. To hear them speak of their positive experiences and relationships with Long Bay College is both heartwarming and affirming. We will be taking significantly fewer out-of-zone students into our school next year, and this may be the last year that we take any, as we are at capacity for our school site. Again, this is wonderfully affirming, as our school has grown year on year since 2019.
I wish you all a wonderful term break and look forward to a prosperous Term 3.
Ngā mihi nui
CJ Healey
Principal
