Principal's Message

We acknowledged the beginning of Lent yesterday with an Ash Wednesday liturgy. There are many events throughout our school year that remind us of our purpose and mission as a Catholic college. Although we fully recognise that many families and students are no longer actively connected with their faith through the traditional channels such as attending Mass regularly, we also do not shy away from ensuring that, as a place of learning in its wider sense, we are providing the knowledge, understanding and practice of our Catholic traditions. At every assembly we also provide opportunities to learn in this way through prayer, reflections, scripture readings and song. These are the outward, visible signs of our faith mission, and who we are as a Catholic school is visible in this manner to onlookers.

What is also visible and even more important is the way we act – as students, staff and parents - within our school community. Our four core gospel values of respect, service, justice and truth are only nice words to have until they are put into action. We need to role model these values as adults and set the bar high in terms of the expectations we place on our students to ensure that, as a community, we are walking the talk. Most of our students at Kavanagh embody our ethos and live their lives in a way that reflects our values. However, we are also a place of learning for teenagers navigating the social complexities of life and relationships and some make mistakes and need reminders about how to treat people with the respect they deserve, not earn. I ask you, as parents and whanau of our young people, to continue having these conversations at home and help reinforce the messages that we are teaching at school. I have a low tolerance for disrespect or injustice in any form, and I will continue to reinforce the gospel values throughout the year with students because this is part of our mission as a Catholic college. I am confident that you will agree with me that academic results pale into insignificance if we are not producing graduates who will be positive contributors to our society.

We continue to have students achieving highly in their field of interest both inside and outside of the college. We would like the opportunity to acknowledge these students in some way, so please do not hesitate to let us know if there are successes you would like to share with us.

Thank you to those parents who were able to attend the mentoring meetings for our year 10 – 13 students earlier this week. It is important for all our students to have an advocate at school who knows them well and can provide insight and support if things ‘get wobbly’ for them at times. For these year groups as they begin to follow more individualised learning programmes, the tutor teacher is often this advocate. I encourage you to contact these people in the first place should you have any need for a conversation about your child.

I would like to give a huge congratulations to Piata Rapata-Hanning who experienced the life of a ‘tv star’ yesterday when Cameron Bennett and his team visited Piata onsite to film a piece about her strong cultural leadership. We look forward to watching the finished product on TVNZ’s ‘Marae’ later this year.

This weekend we look forward to hosting student leaders from Edmund Rice schools throughout New Zealand as they take part in their Edmund Rice Leadership Camp for 2020. Thank you to Amelia Bresanello who has coordinated this and continues to work tirelessly to keep the Edmund Rice flag flying high.

Ngā mihi nui,

Kate Nicholson

Theme for 2020 “Do the little things well’

‘Ahakoa he iti he pounamu’ (Although small it is highly treasured)