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Dear Parents and Caregivers
Kia ora koutou katoa.
Thank you, St Andrew’s College. Our collective fundraising support for those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle has raised an incredible $33,754.20. This generosity strongly represents our DPR value (developing positive relationships) of compassion. In a time where so many are experiencing devastation and suffering, we can feel helpless. Your collective donation will lift the spirits of many in difficult times. Our St Andrew’s College donation will be directed to the New Zealand Red Cross Disaster Fund.
Today’s weather has resulted in the postponement of our Secondary School Athletic Sports Day. This is rescheduled for next Friday, 3 March.
Last weekend our 1st XI enjoyed the annual fixture at the Willows Cricket Club. In this magnificent setting, the team and supporters enjoyed a perfect day for cricket and wonderful hospitality. A number of Old Collegians enjoyed watching the game, with some (including coach Mike Johnston) playing in the opposition Willows Team. StAC lost by a small margin in what was a competitive and enjoyable game. Thanks to Winsome and Ben Dormer, Paul Rutledge and the Willows Cricket Club.
Good luck to our 51 students and the staff for their trip to Blenheim to compete in the Pipe Band Provincial Championships this weekend. Also, to staff Hamish Faulls and Jo Bigford-Fleming and students competing in the South Island Tennis Championships, plus the students away this weekend at Living Springs for the Secondary School Choir and Orchestra Camp.
Finally, this week, on Tuesday we reflected 12 years on since the 22 February earthquake. We remember those who lost their lives and those who mourned their loved ones, whose homes were damaged and whose livelihoods suffered. The courage and resilience shown by many has helped Christchurch make a positive recovery across many aspects of our city. I recall that in my 2011 Prizegiving Speech, I used the following whakataukī of hope.
E huri tō aroaro ki te rā
tukuna to ataarangi
ki muri i a koe.Turn and face the sun and let your shadow fall behind you.
The link below is a video we made in 2013, two years after the earthquake. It features some delightful younger versions of some of our present students. It certainly is a promise of better things to come.
Best wishes for a good weekend.
Noho ora mai.
Christine Leighton
Rector
The Secondary School Athletic Sports Day was postponed from today due to the forecasted weather conditions and will now take place next Friday 3 March.
This is the same date as the Global Strike for Climate, which Head of Secondary School, Evert van Florenstein emailed parents/caregivers about earlier today. Students attending the Global Strike for Climate will need to be signed out at 2.30pm in front of Strowan House, and parents will need to complete the permission form for students to leave the College campus early. Please see Evert’s email for more information.
Last Friday, the Year 13 Media class were visited by writer and director, Jonathan Ogilvie (OC 1979). Jonathan was at St Andrew’s College last year filming his new movie, Head South, which is currently in production. He spent the afternoon with the Year 13 students going over industry roles and script breakdown, plus some great information for our future filmmakers. Jonathan also shared some insights from his career, including his experience working with renowned American director, Stanley Kubrick.
On Monday, the Year 13 Geography students conducted their geographic research at Birdlings Flat and Waimari Beach. The aim was to collect primary data needed to complete their geographic research assessment.
Around 80 Year 12 Biology students attended a field trip to Wainui Bay this week, either on Monday or Tuesday. The students sampled the rocky shore from low tide to high tide to identify the distribution pattern of different species. They also looked at the environmental factors, adaptations and interspecific relationships present. The data collected is now being used to complete the 2.6 Ecology internal.
On Tuesday, Year 13 Business Studies classes attended a Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) kickstart session hosted by Ara. The students heard from the CEO of Young Enterprise about the YES programme, how it would add to their experience and help with their assessments. They listened to alumni from successful businesses of the past and how they became profitable. The afternoon concluded with learning a design process called ‘design dash’ to help teams to come up with solutions to problems in an innovative way. Our students are currently using this process to assist with choosing their products for 2023. The end result was pitching an idea/solution to solve a problem.
Two of the St Andrew’s College teams, headed by Ella Gunn and Alex Rippin, won first place in their competitions for presenting the team pitch. Ashley White and Ella Withers, and also Zachary Piper and Craig Glass, combined to win their sections in teams with students from another school.
Class 1A had a very cute experience yesterday when they were invited by the Teacher in Charge of Agriculture, Natasha Cloughley, to the Secondary School Agriculture room to visit and cuddle the one-week-old baby chicks, which the Agriculture students hatched in incubators.
Friederica Todhunter (Year 13) had a great weekend of racing at the Club National Championships. She raced in the singles final of the U22 and Senior grades and took home a bronze medal in the U22 double. This is a great achievement as the U22 and senior grades are designed as selection events for the international U23 national team.
Last weekend, 67 teams competed in the Vex Robotics National Competition in Auckland, vying for one of the six places New Zealand has allocated for the VEX Worlds in Texas in April. This was the culmination of a long season that started in April 2022, with hundreds of hours spent designing, building, programming, and scrimmaging robots for the game. St Andrew's College entered five teams, with 19 students attending the event. The ‘Super Series Squabblers’, ‘Totally Not a Push Bot’, and ‘Jeremiah’ teams qualified for the quarter-finals. The ‘Super Series Squabblers’ made it to the top eight but were knocked out in their semi-final. This was an excellent result for a Year 10 team, making them the top South Island team.
VIDEO CLIP >1st XI vs Christ’s College – The 1st XI hosted Christ’s College on Saturday. Winning the toss, College amassed a good score of 244/5 declared. On a very good batting surface the St Andrew’s batsman struggled to gain any dominance and the boys were guilty of not valuing their wicket and were all out for a disappointing 158.
1st XI vs Willows – On Sunday the 1st XI played the Willows. The Willows captain lost the toss and St Andrew’s decided to bat. The pitch offered some real assistance to our two opening bowlers Zach Hedgcock (OC 2022) and player Charley Ward who exploited these well taking two wickets apiece and had St Andrew’s College in trouble at 51/4 with Tom Turner (OC 2022) making 35 of those, Jackson Hodgkinson (Year 12) 59 and Timothy Richardson (Year 12) 24 restored the balance and Jonty Davidson (Year 12) made a polished 40 n.o. posting a competitive score of 225. Willows captain and College Custodian Mike Johnston (OC 1974) bowled his nibbly medium pacers with accuracy and picked up three wickets and was well backed up by some great keeping by Calvin Scott (OC 2013) who was involved in six dismissals.
The St Andrew’s opening bowlers of Russell and Davidson bowled well and made life difficult for our top order, but player Calvin Scott 103 n.o. played an excellent innings of patience, guile and power hitting and was well backed up by players Brent Fleming 24 and Chris Nicolson 34 n.o. to bring the Willows home in the 48th over. The St Andrew’s bowlers toiled hard and a pitch that did get flatter as the day progressed. Alex Rippin (Year 13) 2–31 was tidy with his leg spinners. A very competitive game that had some twists and turns, but the experience of the Willows had the edge on the day winning the John MacDonald Trophy.
Result: Willows – 228/6 | St Andrew’s College – 225
The Canterbury District Championships were held at Waihora Clay Target Club on Saturday 11 – Sunday 12 February, with 73 shooters participating. Kurt Lilly (Year 10) came third in B Grade double rise with a score of 19/30. Kurt went on to win B Grade in the Triples contest with a score of 46/50 and was the highest scoring junior.
Meanwhile, his father, Brett Lilly (OC 1985), finished second in B Grade single rise, following a shoot off. Both shot exceptionally well in all of the rounds, with Brett winning the overall B Grade category with a score of 217/255.
In the Royal Commonwealth Society’s Essay Competition 2022, Rylee McBride (Year 11) won a bronze award for her essay about Princess Diana.
In the UK Poetry Society’s Your name is a poem: a translation challenge competition, Hanxi (Cicy) Chen (Year 9) was longlisted for her poem, The Meanings of my Name.
Two students have had their writing selected for publication in Toitoi 31: Cooper Fleming (Year 10) with his story Long Nights, and Charlotte Galvan (Year 10) with her poem My Koro’s tangi.
Jasmine Hooker (Year 11) passed her LTCL piano examination with Distinction.
Last Friday evening the Cashmere Premier Women’s team played a strong Elmwood side at the Elmwood Tennis Club, with Elmwood winning the match. Lily McHarg (Year 11 – Cashmere Club), Sophie McDermott (OC 2022 – Elmwood Club), Ruby McPhail (Year 11 – Cashmere Club), and Charli Watts (OC 2022 – Elmwood Club) were all in last year's Senior A Girls’ tennis team.
On Wednesday, a group of 14 students braved the adverse conditions to compete in the Canterbury Secondary School Show Jumping Event, with our team winning the Show Hunter’s Division.
Individual placings 2-phase:
On Monday Year 5–8 students competed at Jellie Park for their annual Swimming Sports. Year 4 students completed their championships and their very first experience of Swimming Sports the week before.
The Sports Captains started the day early setting up their house colours and rehearsing their chants for their first opportunity as House Captains and leaders of the Preparatory School. Overall, the day was full of excitement, with Erwin winning on House Points.
Sarah McCarthy (Year 8) competed at the Timaru Highland Competition and won the U16 Single Time Irish Jig Championship. Last weekend in Rangiora she also won the U14 Runner-up trophy for Most Points, coming second in the Highland Reel, Highland Fling, Sailor’s Hornpipe and the Sword Dance in the U14 age group.
Georgia Gregg (Year 6) also competed at the Rangiora Competition and won Most Points U10.
Amber de Wit, Scarlett Gray (both Year 11) and Megan Simpson (Year 12) have been selected to represent Canterbury in the Ford Futsal National Super League 2023. Britney-lee Nicholson (OC 2017) and Frankie Morrow (OC 2019) are also part of the squad that will be competing nationally. The team started with two wins from two this past weekend when played Southern United on the first opening Home Series of this four-series event.
Last month, Georgia Lewis (Year 10) was a member of the Canterbury teams for dressage and show jumping (U25) at the New Zealand Pony Club Championships, Gore.
The South Canterbury Highland Pipe Band competed in the Otago/Southland Centre Provincial contest held in Dunedin last weekend. Pipe Band Tutor, Tiffany Gilchrist, is a bass drummer and took the top honours in the bass section, winning the John Reid Trophy for best bass drummer overall from 14 bands.
Good luck to all students who are representing the College over the weekend in sports and cultural activities over the weekend.
We seem to be in a good space with regards to COVID-19 at the moment, with staff and student absence related to the virus very low. However, it is important that we keep a close eye on the situation and as such we please ask that you continue to report to the College any COVID-19 related student absence using the same process as for non-COVID-19 related absences. Ākonga (students) who are household contacts but test negative and do not have COVID-19 symptoms, should continue to attend school.
Parent Guidelines >
Ākonga Absence and Ill-health
A polite reminder that any ākonga who are unwell should not attend school. For any absence, whether ill-health or otherwise, the College’s preferred platform for reporting this is via our online form below.
Recording a Student Absence >
If you are not able to report your child's absence using the online form, please report their absence via the relevant email address below. If you cannot get through to us via the form or email, please call our attendance line on +64 3 940 2031 (term time only).
The Secondary School Swimming Sports are on Monday 27 February, 11.00am–2.30pm. Students who are swimming can come to school in their full College tracksuit with their swimwear underneath. All swimmers are to go to Periods 1 and 2, then after Period 2 head out to the carpark to get on buses to go to Jellie Park. Buses will return around 2.30pm. Parents are welcome.
Further to our recent notice about the start of outdoor winter conditioning, the indoor sports codes are also offering some pre-season training. This will include cross-code movement patterns with a focus on improving overall athletic capacity and injury reduction. These are voluntary sessions for Year 11–13 students and designed as an extra opportunity to assist our athletes across many codes. Summer sport is the priority. These will be held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday 12.45pm–1.25pm in the Fitness Centre for the remainder of Term 1.
Parent Teacher Association (PTA) members are formally notified that the 2023 Annual General Meeting will be held as follows: Tuesday 7 March, 6.30pm, Preparatory School staffroom.
The launch evening for the StACTalks series is Well-being and Resilience on Tuesday 28 February. We will focus on how we have integrated knowledge and research about well-being and resilience as part of our whole school well-being goal. We will also introduce you to some core concepts and tools used at St Andrew’s College to cultivate well-being.
The second part of the evening will be an open discussion involving a question and answer session with a panel. Please send through any questions or discussion points that would be useful to you to cover during this discussion.
When: Tuesday 28 February, 6.30pm–8.00pm
Where: Centennial Chapel
As part of our Sports Performance Programme, guest speaker Lea Stening will be presenting a talk on Sports Nutrition. Parents and student athletes are encouraged to attend. This session will provide key tips for growing and supporting developing athletes, including information relating to cognitive function and well-being. Lea Stening has worked with various sports organisations including New Zealand Rowing and has authored multiple books. For more information about Lea, please click here.
Registrations are open now for this second event in our StACTalks event series.
When: Wednesday 15 March, 6.00pm–6.45pm
Where: Centennial Chapel
Meet our teachers who make the difference at our upcoming Open Days. Please help spread the word for interested families to register online.
Secondary School Open Day: Wednesday 8 March, 9.00am–12.00pm
Last Tour Commences: 10.30am
Rector's Address: 11.00am
Boarding House Open Day: 12.00pm
Preparatory School and Pre-school Open Day: Thursday 9 March, 11.00am–12.30pm
Principal of Preparatory School Address: 11.45am
The Community Business Directory is on our website under Alumni & Community and represents over 100 parent businesses. Please do take a look at how many businesses you can support locally.
The St Andrew's College Community Business Directory >
If you would still like to register your business, complete the following form.
Community Business Directory Registration >
For a full list of upcoming school events, please refer to the fixtures page on StACNet.
