Principal's Message

Yesterday, at our senior assembly, the liturgy focussed on ‘common good’, one of the Catholic Social Teachings that speaks about working for the good of all and respecting the rights and responsibilities of all. I followed this up by reminding everyone that all of their actions – as small as they think they are – affect those people around them. If we are truly living our Catholic special character, then an awareness of our behaviours, language, conversations, actions is so important. Everything we do and say affects others – it is important that we make sure these are positive experiences for those around us.

I enjoyed watching our junior debating team in action at the Dunedin Secondary Debating competition yesterday evening. It was a tight contest. Next Wednesday is the senior final and we are very proud to let you know, that of all the Dunedin schools in this competition, Kavanagh is the only one to have both the senior and junior teams make it to the finals. Thank you to Sharyn Dunn and some dedicated ex-students who have supported our team during their weeks of competition.

Next week is our suspended timetable week for seniors, during which they take part in ‘practice’ exams for NCEA externals. Due to Covid this year, there is always the possibility that external exams cannot take place should we move up in the alert levels. This makes the practice exams this year more important than ever, because it is possible that they may need to contribute to derived grades. We certainly hope this is not the case, but please encourage your children to prepare well and thoroughly for these exams.