Kia ora koutou katoa

 Our great start to the year continues.  We have had some very positive celebrations and events such as our Opening Mass which was fantastic with St Theresa’s church full to the brim, followed by our great house picnics and Athletics sports. These event are a really important part of our school programme and assist our students to connect with each other in a fun context.  I was particularly proud of the high level of involvement and engagement of students at the athletics sports despite the less than ideal weather.

 Peer support and our school leaders are doing a great job welcoming the new year 7 student’s into the College. Our new Nga Roopu Awhi programmes having a positive effect on the relationships and confidence of our new students and the seniors as leaders of the College.  It will be great to see how this evolves over the year.

 The finalised 2017 NCEA results have been released and we have been able to compare our results on a national basis. Once again it was a very positive year with 91% pass rate of NCEA level 1, 91 % pass rate of NCEA level 2 and 72.7% pass rate of NCEA level 3.  These are very good results particularly at level 1 and 2 with Verdon College again having the highest results in Invercargill and overall the results are some of the best in the Otago-Southland region.  Particularly pleasing ,once again, has been the number of students achieving Merit and Excellence endorsement at all levels of the College.

 Comparison with other schools nationally show these results  are up to 16% better than similar schools nationally and up to 17% better than the national average dependent on the year level. One of the things not shown in these statistic’s is the successful transition of our students to further training/study or work which remains at almost 100% of level successfully transitioning to options after their education at the College.

 Year 7 and Year 9 camps will begin soon.  These are important opportunities for students to attend. Huge amounts of planning and preparation goes into making these a formative experience for students and they are really important for students in building confidence through challenges and building relationship with their peers. If there is any difficulty for students attending camp then we are able to assist in a number of ways by contacting Mr MacKay and Mr Hansen to discuss how we can help.

 God Bless

 Jarlath Kelly