Avonside Girls’ High School Te Kura Kohine Ōtākaro – A community where ākonga are empowered and nurtured to thrive.
This has been another busy term at our kura. We started the term by welcoming French students from our partner school for two weeks. Thank you to all our families who hosted the students and gave them such a great experience. Later this year our students go to France to spend time with the friends they met and experience their culture. Sharing culture continued to be a theme of the term – with our choir performing at Canterbury and West Coast Big Sing, our chamber music groups at the Canterbury chamber music competition and our orchestra away on camp. Our showquest team developed a student led dance and multimedia performance about being connected and not allowing technology to take over humanity. Congratulations to Ruby Cleverley for winning best solo performer. The rock band ‘She Said’ continues to perform and entertained us at Open Evening in May. Congratulations to the three students who spoke at Manu Kōrero both in Te Reo Māori and English. This was a huge achievement and the school placed 5th overall. Our Polyfest group and Kapa Haka rōpu have performed both at school and for local business and community events. A highlight this term was our Open Evening in which our classrooms and groups were open to our community to come and view what we do. We are proud of the curriculum and extr-curricular activities we offer our students here at Avonside.
We are continuing to work on our knowledge rich curriculum and giving breadth to students. Our senior programme, Haeranga, has involved past students coming back to speak about their journey and their current careers. We were delighted to welcome back so many past pupils. We also had the opportunity to hear from Maddie Davidson before she set off to the Paris Olympics. Year 11s are exploring careers, financial literacy and healthy relationships. A year 9 class has partnered up with an expert from Nga Hau e Wha in their work on Harakeke in science. They have learnt about how to be kaitiaki of the plant and the process of weaving as well as the science of its growth and place in the ecosystem. Our staff continue to learn to with a large group graduating out of Levels 1-3 Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori semester 1.
Winter sport has got off to a cracking start. The number of students involved in teams has increased and we are grateful to teachers and parents who are coaching and managing teams. There is involvement in netball, hockey, badminton, basketball, rugby and rugby league, and football. A highlight was our Football First XI winning the challenge shield and continuing to hold onto it by winning their games each week. Our rugby teams are going from strength to strength, and we continue to enjoy large numbers in netball and badminton. Thank you to so many staff and parents for your support in coaching and managing.
The term finished with a spectacular Matariki event ‘Stars on the Ground’ celebrating our students and their achievements across music, dance and arts.