A Message from our Principal

Kia ora koutou

I have just returned from the annual Secondary Principals’ Conference during which we heard from speakers and took part in workshops that spanned legal and employment matters, pornography and masculinity, security risks in schools, AI, Outdoor Education reviews and updates, and much more. Of course, like any conference, the opportunity to catch up with colleagues from throughout the country was appreciated by all of us. We also had the Minister of Education join us to revisit the key points of the Education Budget and give us some indication of possible changes ahead for the secondary curriculum and qualifications system.

As a strong network of nine Catholic schools in Dunedin, we were obviously very disappointed to learn last week that our Kāhui Ako (community of schools) will not be resourced by the Ministry of Education from 2026. We have developed a very strong network of practice over the last few years and much has been achieved. The Hearing You counselling service for our primary schools, the Big Day Out, the shared resource to provide te reo and tikanga tutoring in the primary schools, plenty of Professional Learning in quality teaching for all our teachers and, in contining to develop this, a commitment to providing the highest quality teaching practice in every classroom across our Kāhui Ako, as well as maths workshops between our secondary and primary teachers, has been some of the work achieved across our Catholic schools community in the last few years. We are determined to continue this work even without funding so please be assured we will do our best to continue providing a quality and connected Catholic education pathway in Dunedin.

Another initiative because of our kāhui is the Pacific Learners’ Research Project we are doing in partnership with Victoria University. It was good to have researcher Martyn Reynolds in school this week leading a staff meeting, providing staff learning and supporting our kāhui wide Pacific Role Models day for about 150 learners in our Catholic schools which we hosted at Trinity on Tuesday morning.

It has been a week of visitors for us. We also had the privilege of hosting Sr Anne Lyons, who is from Ireland and is a senior member of the Presentation Order and postulator for the cause of Nano Nagle. Being able to learn more about the Presentation Order and the life of Nano Nagle (Nagle being one of our House names) was a treat from such an accomplished presenter.

Staff look forward to our Teacher Only Day on Friday when we will continue some in-depth curriculum work and revisit the elements of quality teaching practice.

Enjoy a restful long weekend – the term is going by at pace. I am sure that a day to catch our breath will be enjoyed by everyone!

Ngā mihi nui

Kate Nicholson

Principal