Principal's Message

It is so good to be back at school! The week has gone very smoothly so far, and our young people were full of joy on Monday, meeting up with their friends again, being outside, enjoying some physical activity with their peers and returning to familiar routines. Learning online for the period of lockdown appears to have gone exceptionally well in most cases and some departments are even ahead of schedule in their curriculum programming. This learning success can be attributed to the strong commitment from staff, students and parents. The balance required to keep a sense of normality and forward momentum in the year’s academic programme, while also maintaining a conscious awareness of wellbeing, personal circumstances and constraints, was significant. I am so proud of our school community that worked hard to manage this balance in trying circumstances. We realise that, for some students, returning to school routines has not been easy. Please remember that our deans and pastoral team are very happy to help with any concerns.

One thing we are determined to keep going, is the use of devices for learning in the classroom. Of course, in the physical classroom digital learning will be blended into the teaching and learning programmes rather than being the only method, but now that so many skills have been gained in this area, we don’t want this to regress. Please make sure your child is bringing their charged chromebook or laptop to school every day because teachers will be expecting this as part of their planning. If this is not possible, please contact your child’s dean and we will help where we can.

On Tuesday 24th March, our teacher only day was overshadowed by the lockdown announcement and we were unable to use this day as calendared. Next Friday, 29th May, was due to be our Kahui Ako Expo Day for teachers in all Dunedin Catholic schools. This day has now had to be cancelled under alert level 2. We have decided to continue with school as usual that day because we feel it is important for staff, students and their families to re-establish school routines. Instead, I would like to signal that we are going to hold our teacher only day on Monday June 22nd. Please make a note of this in your calendars. We will be using the day to analyse, discuss and plan the feedback that you gave us in March regarding the skills you would like to see in our graduates when they leave Kavanagh College. This will then help inform our strategic planning for 2021 and beyond. I know that there will be much rich information that has come out of our recent experience as well and it will be good to use this as part of the planning. If you would like to contribute your thinking based on the recent remote learning, please feel free to email the office and we will add this to our thinking.

And, finally, it feels like we have a weekend in front of us. It has been a big week getting back into the swing of things. Enjoy the new freedom we are all experiencing, and I know your children will be looking forward to a couple of sleep-ins after a full week at school!

“Father, today we give thanks for all the blessings You have given us. Despite the challenges in our lives, we know that we are blessed”

Nāku iti noa, nā