Principal's Piece
As the curtain comes down on the 2023 school year, there is an opportunity to look back and celebrate what has been another incredibly successful year for Mount Hutt College.
The year has been flush with success across all dimensions of school life - mind, body and spirit. Whilst it is impossible to quantify the depth and breadth of success this year in words, there are definitely some highlights, at least from my perspective.
Some of the key highlights of the 2023 school year include:
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The performance of the MHC choir at the Big Sing Competition
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The South East Asia trip in June and July
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Winning the UC Championship as part of the Mid Canterbury Combined 1st XV
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The incredible talent on display at our production, Ma Baker’s Tonic
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Holding all three school quadrangular titles simultaneously for the first time
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Our Manaaki STARS pilot in Year 10 and weaving our growth profile into our curriculum
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Some of the highest quality student leadership I have ever seen from our Prefect team
Celebrating success, as always, is the general theme of any final week of the school year. Both our Year 7-8 and Year 9-10 Prizegivings this week continued to reinforce the many layers of success that we have within our school and in our wider community. A special congratulations goes to our 2023 overall excellence winners Henrietta Cairns (Year 7), Addison Griffiths (Year 8), May McCaw (Year 9), Harriet Brown (Year 10).
In terms of my messaging at Prizegiving there were two key takeaways:
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Successful people are very strong goal setters. We encouraged our students, with the support of their whānau, to spend some time reflecting on the goals they have set in 2023, to evaluate progress towards them and to reset new goals for 2024 heading into the New Year.
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Success does not happen in a vacuum. We acknowledged that behind every successful learner there is a supportive whānau, a group of committed and talented teachers, and many other key community contributors, all of whom do the hard yards to little fanfare. We encouraged our students to spend some time over the break ensuring that they reached out to these people and thanked them for their support.
In addition to our usual prizegiving programme, we also hosted a major community event yesterday evening to start the conversations around a new Trades and Agriculture Hub within our school. The event, attended by over 70 members of our farming and business community, was a great first step in developing some ideas for the Hub. We plan to host a follow-up event early in 2024 to work through the plan based on these ideas. If you are interested to be part of this journey then please prioritise attending the second event.
As we turn the page on 2023 and look forward to celebrating the summer season alongside our families there is plenty to look forward to. In 2024 the school roll is expected to surpass 560 students, our learners will return to a school with two new classrooms (in the old squash court area in the gym) and a new Learning Support Hub. 2024 will feature a school exchange to Japan and a Rugby/ Netball trip to Australia.
2024 will also feature some additional changes for whānau. Having joined the Government’s Donations Scheme at the end of this year, whānau will no longer have to pay school donations. More information around this will come out in early January. Basically speaking, the only charges that whānau will see moving forward are for overnight trips, take home components and extracurricular activities.
With the change of Government there has been plenty of talk recently around a blanket cell phone ban in schools. We will wait for updated advice from the Government around this. Pending the updated advice, we plan to head into the 2024 school year with the same approach to 2023 - cell phones are banned for Year 7-11 students with Year 12-13 students allowed to bring them to school, but will not be permitted to use them in class without the express permission of staff.
All the best for the summer season whānau. Enjoy the opportunities to reconnect with those closest to us, to recharge the batteries and reevaluate our hopes and aspirations as we head into the new year. We look forward to touching base with you all again midway through January.
Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa.
Let us keep close together, not far apart.