Kia ora e te whānau;

It’s nice to be back for a fresh term. Fresh air, colder temperatures, a little bit of rain to remind us that we’re going into winter but also the promise of sunshine for the weekend sport!

A fresh term, a blank page, a new beginning - Term Two starts with a level of enthusiastic hope. Harnessing the energy and keeping the eye on the prize allows this to be a term where an awful lot is done. We hope for good results - but that hope is going to need to be acted upon. Our staff are prepared and ready with timetabled lessons and great expertise and I am always grateful for their preparedness and how they tailor the explanations of their knowledge to their classes.

The call to students is, as ever, to take advantage of the opportunities: be guided to get the best out of natural abilities and to build new skills and new capacities. Term Two at Green Bay High School is a ‘moving term’. Internal assessments for the seniors come with regularity this term and the credits start to roll in. Term Three starts to skew towards the externals, but this term is where multiple internals can bring immediate rewards. Here is a link to some useful information about NCEA qualifications “NCEA for Parents and Whānau.”

For our Year 10s the first of two CAA - the Common Assessment Activities - that are part of NCEA qualifications will be in week four. The CAAs are “co-requisites” and Literacy and Numeracy must both be successfully completed to gain an NCEA qualification. Students only need to meet the 20-credit Literacy and Numeracy requirement once. After they have met the requirement, it counts for every level of NCEA. It is important that students take these assessments seriously, but it is also important to recognise that there will be further opportunities to complete the requirement if students don’t manage it in the upcoming assessments. HERE is some information on NCEA’s Literacy and Numeracy requirements.

Being in class regularly is vital to take advantage of the teaching skills of our staff and we will continue to use the government’s STAR approach to support students being in school.

Senior netball has begun - Tuesday evening at Te Pai doesn’t always mean rain, but does always mean that our netball players will be there giving their all. Congratulations to Senior Premier team members Jade Barnes (Year 9) and Chloe Van Wyk (Year 10) for their selection for the Netball Waitākere representative team. As this goes out on Friday I also want to wish all the junior netball teams the best of luck in their grading games on Saturday.

Also on Saturday morning, the 1st XI football boys’ team will be playing Avondale on their 80th Anniversary Weekend. Whilst we wish our near neighbours the best with their weekend, in the spirit of healthy competition I do hope the boys can get a result that favours the Green rather than the Black.

I wish everyone a lovely weekend - but notably for our Star Wars-familiar families - enjoy Sunday!

Chris Woodward, ACTING PRINCIPAL