Bishop’s Shield Success

The Bishop’s Shield brings together the four Catholic high schools in the Dunedin Diocese (Verdon College, St Peter’s College, St Kevin’s College, and Trinity Catholic College) and students from the schools compete against one another in prepared speech, impromptu speech, junior and senior te reo speech, junior and senior debating, junior and senior drama, and junior and senior scripture.

Huge congratulations to all the Trinity students who participated in the Bishop’s Shield competition this year - they gave it their all, represented our school wonderfully well, and were welcoming and friendly hosts.

We started the event with a mihi whakatau, a shared meal (hāngī), and an opening liturgy on Friday before launching into the events.

Everybody’s participation and performance contributed to the overall outcome and we were very proud of the whole team. A special “well done” to the following for their placings/awards:

Ethan Then - 1st in Senior Scripture (Psalm & Sight-Reading)

Rose Burke - 1st in Junior Scripture

Camila Barns - 1st in Senior Te Reo Speech

Emilia Batson - 1st in Junior Te Reo Speech

Rishi Shantapriyan - 1st in Impromptu Speech

Joseph Kelly, Akein Wickramagedara & Ché McGivern - 1st in Senior Debates

Mitchell Atkinson, Riley Culling, Esther Koudayah, Laura McCartney & Mata Taua - 1st in Senior Drama

Leah Olsen - 2nd in Prepared Speech

Joseph Kelly - Best Leader in Senior Debates

Ché McGivern - Best Speaker in Senior Debates

Bella McLennan - Most Promising Junior Dramatic Performance

The general theme of this year’s Bishop’s Shield was “Anchored in Wisdom, Adapting for Tomorrow” and it was very interesting to listen to the students from all the schools across the different events expressing their ideas around this topic.

As always, the weekend also included lots of opportunities for the students from all the schools to interact socially and it was wonderful to see everyone getting on so well with old friendships reignited and new ones formed.

Thank you to the staff who coached our Trinity students in the different disciplines, those who kept us fed and watered all weekend, the student helpers who ran tech, introduced sections, were timekeepers, and assisted in a variety of other ways, the judges, Paul Olsen the competition moderator, and the staff and students from St Kevin’s, St Peter’s, and Verdon who joined us for a truly memorable weekend.

Congratulations, Trinity!!