It has been a week of success and recognision for three of our musicians.
Year 12 violinist Nick Pittar, has just been named as a member of the New Zealand Secondary Schools Symphony Orchestra.
He also won first place in the Nelson School of Music Scholarships in the Phyllis Fell open category playing Mozart concerto in D No. 4 1st movement.
Nick is seen here playing as part of Garin’s Sheilagh Winn Shakespearean production which won the top-of-the-south competition and gained national recognision for their musical accompaniment.
Year 10 pianist Holly Tippler won the Under 14 piano scholarship playing a piece by Bartok and one by Grenados in the same Nelson School of Music competition.
And to finish the week, Year 11 guitarist Clark Hinton was awarded best musician at the finals of Nelson Rock Quest.
At the end of term 1, current Principal Mary Cook and former Principal Collene Roche spent three days in the school looking at the Catholic nature of Garin, and the quality of our RE programme. We take being a Catholic school very seriously – and our staff and Board were proud of what they found here.
So it was good to read things like …
- There is no doubt that gospel values are a key to the operation of the school
- The relationships in the school are most positive and visitors are treated with respect
- The school has worked successfully to enhance academic achievement
- The faith-based vision of the school is clear
- The Catholic culture is strong with prayer celebrated in many formats.
- Pastoral care is clearly evident and students can be confident that they are part of a safe environment which supports their learning and well being.
- Restorative Justice is the key to the way in which behaviour management with student issues is carried out.
- Students report that they feel safe at school. The dignity of all persons in the community is highly respected and this is borne out through support and structures.
Those observations are the results of eight years of planning and hard work by staff, parents, Boards and students. In the first few years when staff, students, parents and Boards were coming from different experiences and had different expectations, everyone had to work very hard to develop a shared vision for our school – and then to build the school we wanted Garin to become.
We are still not the school we hope to become. There is still plenty to do – but this report shows that we have come a long way and can feel justifiably proud of what we have managed to achieve in our first few years. Congratulations and a big thank you to all of our supporters over the years for your contribution and support in building our school.
Read the full report.
The male cyclists in Henry Kersten’s Garin team took a clean sweep of the titles on offer at the top-of-the-south regionals on Wednesday.
Joel MacManus won the Under 15 time trial and scratch race.
Tom Nicholson won the Under 17 time trial and scratch race.
Thomas Ashley won the Under 19 scratch race and the time trial. Tom Ashley’s result is a combination of having ridden and achieved good results in the semi-professional benchmark series and completing serious training.
The three boys then combined to win the team time trial, beating Marlborough College, Waimea College and a combined team from Nayland and Queen Charlotte Colleges.
Maria Schryvers wasn’t to be outdone, achieving second place in the Under 17 girls’ race in her first ever race. She also took third place in the time trial.
Two other riders also rode well for Garin on the day, Matthew Ruffell and Cameron Eggers.
Our teachers were very pleased with last year’s NCEA results, but now we have access to the statistics for the region, we are doubly pleased to see that Garin College is the top academic school in our region. Congratulations-and thanks to students, staff and families for your hard work last year making that happen. And great to see our boys and our girls both doing well compared to schools that specialise in single sex education. Hostel staff are also very pleased to maintain their high standards with pass-rates of 92% for level 1, and 100% for levels 2 and 3.
|
Percentage NCEA passrates for Nelson schools 2008
|
|
NCEA Level
|
|
Garin College
|
NCG
|
NC
|
WC
|
NC
|
MHS
|
Garin Girls
|
Garin Boys
|
|
1
|
Ach
|
84
|
80
|
74
|
73
|
66
|
63
|
97
|
78
|
|
|
Merit
|
32
|
35
|
21
|
22
|
17
|
11
|
36
|
30
|
|
|
Excel
|
7
|
8
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
4
|
10
|
5
|
|
2
|
Ach
|
77
|
84
|
80
|
71
|
63
|
68
|
80
|
75
|
|
|
Merit
|
10
|
23
|
16
|
17
|
8
|
10
|
15
|
7
|
|
|
Excel
|
0
|
9
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
3
|
Ach
|
78
|
76
|
64
|
61
|
46
|
41
|
82
|
73
|
|
|
Merit
|
13
|
16
|
6
|
12
|
10
|
5
|
17
|
9
|
|
|
Excel
|
0
|
7
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
On Friday 60 dancers and their student leaders gained second place in the Nelson/Marlborough regional final of Stage Challenge. Student leaders Ella Gunn, James Hall-Smith, Elle Cole and Katie-May Wastney had devised a magical performance featuring Holly Tippler and Roman Birch in lead roles – but the success came from the absolute commitment and discipline of the whole cast. A big thank you to staff supporters Jo Calt, Vince Fox and Rachelle Tomlin.
And congratulations to Garin’s three Rockquest bands – all through to next month’s regional finals.
Goal setting and Career Planning
This week parents may have heard their son or daughter talking about their skills and their learning goals or chatting about their future career ideas. Whanau time on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for the next four weeks is devoted to all students completing a Career and Learning Plan.
At home you can look at the learning and career plan outline that students are working on — see www2.careers.govt.nz/fileadmin/pdf/lcp_resource_colour.pdf. Also more careers information for Parents and family can be found here: www2.careers.govt.nz/parents_family_whanau.html
Year 12 and 13 students visited the Careers Expo at the Trafalgar Centre earlier in the term - and it was great to see some parents and students go in one evening for some personalised attention. Sensible course selection later in the year – and eventual career and training selections depend on the work being done now.
Garin’s O’Shea team performed very well indeed last weekend, competing in speech, drama, debating and scholarship against the other 16 Catholic secondary schools in the Wellington and Palmerston North dioceses. They finished four points behind the winning school: St Patrick’s College from Kilbirnie. The seven events are each marked out of six and Garin accumulated 34 points.
Our debaters faced the eventual winning debating team, but Nic Barkley, Nick Pittar and Natt Watts debated that “now is the best chance for peace” with energy and flair. Our four speech competitors were also very strong: all being awarded 5/6. In his first O’Shea Joel MacManus had a powerful speech on racism. Nic Barkley was our orator and spoke movingly about family. Rebecca Sims was our scripture reader and read with meaning and strength, while James Hall-Smith was, as always, the consummate performer in his impromptu.
Joseph James, Nadine Aston, and Angela Fisk were very well prepared for questions on the “consistent ethic of life” in the New Zealand context – and our drama was again outstanding (if not quite what the judges were looking for this year), and James, Rebecca, Abby James, Keeli Ferris, Elle Cole presented a slick and thought-provoking presentation.
The O’Shea Shield brings together the best and brightest young people in our Catholic schools and, as Archbishop John Dew said at the final Mass, they are our hope for the future. It was a wonderful weekend.
Garin College has been awarded the South Island Award for making New Zealand Sign Language available in the school. Mary McEntyre, the teacher responsible for our special needs students, received the award on behalf of the College, presented as an acknowledgement of the fact that students receive lessons in using NZSL and also to recognise the very successful work done with the school’s deaf student.
Craig Lautenslager once again has achieved fantastic results winning first place in the South Island Secondary Schools U16 3000m race in Invercargill last weekend. Craig’s achievement now ranks him amongst the best in the country and is the result of much hard work and natural talent. He displayed much guile to outwit his competitors in this tactical race. Many thanks go to his coach Greg Lautenslager. Fantastic effort Craig!
Thursday 7 May was the first anniversary of Asher Clayton’s death. Family, friends and teachers remembered him in a special liturgy, and a Golden Ash tree was planted to remind us of the blessings he brought us.
Prayer of remembrance for Asher
As Christian people we know that death is longer than life. It is our hope and goal to live our lives with such energy and goodness that when our end comes, we will pass over into eternal life and into the welcoming arms of our Creator. When one of us dies, we grieve for them, but we know that they have become part of that life with our Creator. Our real sadness is for ourselves:, for Asher’s friends and his family who have to carry on without him, and maybe the sadness of regret that we didn’t get to know him better.
At this time we also do all we can to comfort friends and families who face continuing their own lives without Asher. We pray for them, and send them signs of our love and support.
Creator God, you made and love each one of us. Please look after our friend Asher. Please help us all—but especially those who knew him best and loved him most—to remember the good times and to find comfort in those memories. We make these prayers in the name of Jesus: another son who died too soon.
Amen.
