Term 3 has truly raced by at Te Kura Kōhine o Ōtakaro/Avonside Girls’ High School. There has been a focus on students’ pathways and academic achievement with a pathways evening early in the term, a careers expo for students and a whanau subject evening with all the possible choices at Avonside on display. It was inspiring to hear our young people so focused on their next steps and discussing the choices at the school. A wide range of languages, technologies and arts are on offer for our students, as well as subjects such as psychology and classics, commerce and media studies and our HPE, Maths, English and Science offer varying courses to suit future decisions. At Avonside we are proud of the different pathways our young people take and encourage them to plan ahead. Our students go to University, Trades, ARA, the workplace in areas ranging from automotive and engineering to medicine and law. This has been a big term for our senior students to achieve goals in academic assessments and for our Year 10 with their co-requisite numeracy and literacy examinations, and we are proud of them all. Currently their academic success is ahead of national averages.
In addition to this focus on academic achievement, many of our students have been involved in sport tournaments, cultural festivals, art exhibitions and music competitions. This winter our hockey, badminton, football, equestrian, skiing, climbing, basketball and netball all competed in winter tournament week. All had success and special mention must be made of our First XI Football team who won the Gary Sowden Tournament in Blenheim. This term saw the inauguration of the Rugby Academy and the first cohort are well into their training and work. Talking of firsts and inaugural we were proud to host the first Kāhui Ako Kapa Haka Festival in partnership with Shirley Boys. All schools in our Kāhui Ako performed on stage and it was an amazing community night. Our Kapa Haka rōpu worked hard this term to compete at Tūhono and their singing and haka lifted the roof. Our polyfest group continued their creatives in school mahi performing at a festival for parents, family and local schools. Congratulations to our senior artists whose work was exhibited in the Eastside Art Exhibition – with pieces selling quickly. Congratulations also to our World Scholars’ Cup teams who went to Auckland to compete in the national competition. Amazing results and a testament to the preparation they have done in problem solving, debating and knowledge. The last week of term was celebrated with a gala day, whacky week and finished with our annual lipsync.
We are thrilled to see overseas trips up and running again. At the end of Term 3 our students travelled to France and Japan on two separate trips. This opportunity to gain experience of other cultures and languages as well as travel in a new country is a huge part of developing a global understanding for our young people.
We want to thank all our staff, community and students for an incredible term 3.