Issuu

AUGUST 2020

“We must continue through multiple lenses to see what is important, to have the courage to drop what is not, and to have in our hands the ability and confidence to change the future.”

Diocesan School for Girls Clyde Street, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand Private Bag 99939, Newmarket 1149 P. 09 520 0221 F. 09 520 6778 E. office@diocesan.school.nz

Heather McRae, Principal

DIOCESAN.SCHOOL.NZ

SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE

BOARD CHAIR

Mr Andrew Peterson

PRINCIPAL

Ms Heather McRae

CHAPLAIN

Reverend Sandy Robertson

ASSISTANT CHAPLAIN

Reverend Bryan Haggitt

HEAD OF SENIOR SCHOOL

Mrs Margaret van Meeuwen

DEPUTY PRINCIPALS

Mrs Dian Fisher Mr Simon Walker

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Mrs Kate Burkin

HEAD OF JUNIOR SCHOOL

Mrs Suzanne Brewin

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL JUNIOR SCHOOL

Mrs Amy Thompson

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND PLANNING

Mr Paul McDowell-Hook

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

Mrs Rachel Gardiner

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Mrs Angela Coe DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE

Mrs Jocelyn Anso

ADMISSIONS DIRECTOR

Mrs Kate Jones

HEAD PREFECT

Maddy Gault

DEPUTY HEAD PREFECT

Francesca Masfen

DIO TODAY is produced through the Marketing Office of Diocesan School for Girls and is designed and published by Image Centre Group. For information about this publication, contact the Editor, Liz McKay E. lmckay@diocesan.school.nz / Old Girls’ liaison and proofreading, Deirdre Coleman E. d.g@slingshot.co.nz / Commissioned photography by Nicola Topping, Real Image (realimage.co.nz).

After dark days of any sort, it is always good to have something to celebrate. When our lockdown restrictions were lifted and the School could recommence more or less ‘as normal’, we all looked forward to things to celebrate after so many events and competitions were postponed or cancelled. It can be hard to deal with those feelings of disappointment, let-down and frustration when we have been anticipating specific events and worked hard to achieve certain goals. So, in what remained of Term 2, it was a joy to celebrate a number of wonderful events. Diocesan’s 116th birthday with the traditional concert was held live for the School in the Sports Centre. Rather than a dinner, this year the annual Scholars’ Awards were marked at a Full School Assembly. The Dio Day Out gave some added hype to the Parents & Friends Shield hockey and netball games with a jazz band and an entertaining performance by the Hip Hop girls. We share all these celebrations in the pages of this issue of Dio Today. An old song from the 1950s by songwriters Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen encourages us to ‘accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative’. It’s sound advice in these days when the world is largely still living in the grip of COVID-19 and we in New Zealand hang on gratefully to our hard-won – if fragile – freedom. While it is important to have things to look forward to and celebrate, as Head of Senior School Margaret van Meeuwen says: “What will remain consistent is the kindness, care and compassion of our whole Dio community and the willingness to look after each other, whatever the future holds.” Liz McKay, Editor

T R E N Z S E AT E R I N T E R N AT I ON AL LIGHTING WeChat

AUCKLAND - 80 Parnell Rd, 09 303 4151 CHRISTCHURCH - 121 Blenheim Rd, 03 343 0876 QUEENSTOWN - 313 Hawthorne Dr, 03 441 2363 www.trenzseater.com

AUGUST 2020 Cover photo: Trio Glivenko, winners of gold at the NZCT Chamber Music Competition finals in Wellington. Photo: Nicola Topping.

LEADING

02 From the Principal The need for a responsive and creative curriculum in our ever-changing and challenging world

04 2020 six months in A student perspective

08 Heritage Foundation news

LEARNING

12 The Scholars’ Awards Celebrating achievements in the 2019 examinations

15 Having their say The 2020 Ethics Soapbox Competition

16 Online learning An unprecedented time in education

18 Introducing the Middle Years

46 Drama Successes Our aspiring thespians in the spotlight

49 House Music & Dance This much-anticipated House event never disappoints!

50 Celebrating 116 years The annual School Birthday Concert

The English Department

26 Visual arts Looking for that ‘big idea’

30 Getting creative Year 11 food technologists take the cake

33 Open for play The Junior School’s Norfolk pine development

36 Lessons in pyjamas Learning from home

LIVING

38 Chaplaincy Who is my neighbour?

41 Service learning A new House competition supports the City Mission

42 Performing arts The band plays on... on the small screen

44 CMNZ Talented young Dio musicians head for the finals of this prestigious competition

52 Junior School sport Finding new ways to learn, move and keep fit and healthy

54 Before lockdown kicked in Dio’s great sports results in Term 1

58 Term 2 challenges A new game plan for sport at Dio

61 Our NZ reps A waiting game for international competitions

62 Parents & Friends of Dio Adapting our focus

Programme Part 2

20 Faculty focus

LIFELONG FRIENDS 65 President’s column

A message from OGL President Jenny Spillane

66 OGL Awards programme Promoting a special balance of history and tradition, achievement and recognition

68 Alumnae news Features familiar names Tessa Duder, Dr Janice Rymer and a very new Old Girl, Sadie Sumich

71 Building valuable networks Tapping into the experience and expertise of our Old Girls

72 Mel Abbott Helping others overcome health issues and ‘get a life’

74 Contemporary visual artist Lizzie Snow’s captivating organic designs have earned her a large following and opportunities galore

77 Private investigator Julia Robson talks about her crime-busting career

79 Upcoming events and Milestones

54 48

L E A DIN G FROM THE PRINCIPAL

The road to the unknown

programmes. These past changes have moved ethical thinking and girls’ views of leadership from an implicit part of our curriculum to explicit parts. The Leadership programme particularly emphasises future-focused thinking: the ability to systematically identify aspects of a complex issue that can be examined from a range of viewpoints to fully understand the problem. It is then scoped into the future, to explore different scenarios or solutions and the impact of these, therefore assisting young women to trust their preparedness for leadership and the unknown.

lliot Eisner is a well-known artist, teacher and educational theorist. He is famously known in New Zealand for announcing at a conference that “the road to hell is sticking to the curriculum.” Elliot has, over time through research and theory, explored options for curriculum suggesting that it goes well beyond what happens in classrooms. He outlines that there is an explicit curriculum, an implicit and also a null curriculum – that which is not taught. As this year’s impending pandemic approached, Elliot’s words came to the fore as we prepared for what was about to come. You wonder if Elliot could have foreseen some of the future where we are indeed constructing curriculum in many different ways, examining what needs to be taught, and what isn’t taught and should be. Curriculum is and should be embedded with important basic elements, but there is a growing need for it to be responsive and creative to address an ever-changing world and prepare us all to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges. Not wanting to exaggerate the importance of these issues, without resolution they may indeed throw the survival of the human race into question. To ignore these issues such as pandemics, environmental degradation, and social injustice, we may well have a curriculum that isn’t able to prepare our young women adequately for their future, thus proving Elliot’s theory. Over time, the School has traditionally delivered important aspects of life that help young people. Our religious studies programme has grown to embrace the need for spiritual development along with a knowledge and understanding of some of the world’s largest religions.

DIO TODAY

However, other aspects of curriculum have not been taught and should have been – especially in relation to Ma-tauranga Ma-ori and our commitment to understanding a Ma-ori world view. We believe that this is a unique point of difference for every young woman, to grasp the commitment our country has to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and to ensure that decision making in the future is cognisant of this important cultural knowledge. In implementing this programme through our Junior High School over the next two years, we believe that it is a first in New Zealand and adds a significant body of cultural knowledge, making it part of the explicit curriculum for our girls. It is great that New Zealand history is now finally being taught through the national curriculum but sad that it has taken this long for it to become compulsory. Being responsive through curriculum is a benefit we can enjoy in the independent sector and Dio has covered New Zealand history for the last 116 years – after all, women had an important voice. It is also why we implemented our Ethics and Leadership

Addressing these issues at Dio has been part of our ongoing growth and a commitment that has helped us manage the pandemic this year. There are multiple ways of delivering curriculum, and out of COVID-19 the extent of what we have learned demonstrates that real-world contexts provide extensive opportunities for learning – for adults and students together. The power of community was very evident, creating closer connections between widespread Dio people in all parts of the world, as well as bringing many parents into the learning environment that their daughters shared with us. While schools have often been posited with the entire responsibility for every new aspect of education, this involved the whole community in a heart-warming collaboration – something we should continue to value and nurture. Through you and the unpredictable ways of the world, we must continue through multiple lenses to see what is important, to have the courage to drop what is not, and to have in our hands the ability and confidence to change the future. Ut Serviamus! Heather McRae, Principal

LEADING

“Out of COVID-19 the extent of what we have learned demonstrates that real-world contexts provide extensive opportunities for learning – this involved the whole community in a heart-warming collaboration – something we should continue to value and nurture.”

DIO TODAY

: IN

SIX

NTHS O M

2020 SO FAR

A student perspective Head Prefect Maddy Gault and Deputy Head Prefect Francesca Masfen reflect on the first six months of their senior year.

t’s fair to say that this year has not exactly gone as planned. Our graduation year was turned upside down by the implications of COVID-19. Reflecting on the first six months of 2020, we have been challenged in ways we never thought possible...which will actually help us as we venture into the big wide world next year. It is inevitable that when you are about to experience something you’ve looked forward to for so long (for Year 13s, our senior year) you always visualise

DIO TODAY

it in your head and put expectations on yourself, but in reality, you can’t control what happens. That is all part of being the leaders of our School – adapting to what is presented to us. Of course, there have been aspects that felt like a let-down; we’ve missed lots of the time we could have had together as a cohort, time we won’t ever get back. But now more than ever we need to adopt the mentality of: “Class of 2020, let’s make the most of it”. In lots of

things in life, if something doesn’t go the way you hoped, you can’t just stop and give up. You fight back and treasure what you have. In some ways, restoring that senior year motivation was a bit hard, but really, we couldn’t have asked for a better group of girls. During the lockdown, we wanted to keep the Dio community alive, as well as continuing to demonstrate our theme for 2020: Nga-kau nui, meaning ‘big-hearted’. We thought that in order

LEADING Above: The Year 13 cohort photographed on Athletics Day in February. Right: During the lockdown, the School Councils kept in touch with the student body via online options like Instagram.

to do this successfully, we should use social media in a positive way to keep connected. We tried our best to keep the Dio Supporters’ Club Instagram active, with posts including quotes, messages and challenges. We focused on these challenges as a way to keep connected with the girls and help with lockdown boredom! The challenges started off as ideas generated by us, but over time we collaborated with our respective councils and teachers. This way we were able to capture all areas of Dio, connect with every girl, and break the barrier between year levels, going forward as one Dio community. Our councils placed a large emphasis on the well-being of the girls through their initiatives. It was important to Sport Prefect Ava Tinkler and her Sport Council to ensure the sporting community stayed active without the usual sports calendar. They released a DIO workout plan called DIO45. It involved four 45-minute workouts per week, created and filmed by sports managers Bella Bloomfield and Josh Wedlake.

It was really uplifting seeing the team come together and organise the Dio Day Out event, an afternoon supporting our hockey and netball girls. We partnered with the Arts and Cultural Councils to have a halftime show where our Hip Hop crew and Jazz Band took the stage (in this case the hockey turf!) This end-of-term event was not only a celebration of our girls, their passions and a friendly bit of competition, but also a celebration of what New Zealand has done as a team of five million – for a while we didn’t believe that sport would continue at all! To continue healthy living, Environment Prefect Brooke Vincent introduced ‘Meat Free Mondays’. She said: “It was awesome to see participation across many year levels in this lockdown initiative and was great to see girls stepping out of their

usual routines and getting creative cooking for their families.” Student Services Prefect Chloé Hickin and her council noticed the shortchanged feeling lockdown presented. Her council created challenges to boost healthy habits and teach ways to practise gratitude. Through Chloé’s own self-reflection during this period, she learnt the power of positivity, which has inspired a new initiative called Nga Mihi Ki Koutou – ‘from us to you’, focusing on student well-being. Similarly, Cultural Prefect Anisha de Silva focused on the well-being of each individual girl by spreading the message of acceptance, particularly in circumstances where we all need to work together for a common goal. The Arts Council faced a lot of disappointment. Many performances, DIO TODAY

competitions and festivals such as the annual Dio/Dilworth senior production and the Big Sing were cancelled. However, the most gut-wrenching loss for Anna Casey and her team was when the Gala Opening for the Arts Centre Auditorium was postponed. Despite this, Anna addressed the important point of focusing on what we have: “We’ve tried to focus our attention on the positives and on events that are still running such as Chamber Music NZ and KBB.” The Arts Council’s theme for 2020 is ‘Tuwhera’, which means to be open to new ideas, challenges and experiences. Anna explains that this theme was inspired by the auditorium opening, but due to the changes, she and her council decided to explore the theme during the lockdown. “During lockdown in Levels 3 and 4, Dio Arts produced several virtual arts videos involving choirs, orchestras, chamber groups and dancers. This was a wonderful opportunity to stay connected with others during lockdown and to share our passion for the arts with the wider community.” These videos can be viewed on the DIO Facebook page. Sabreen Islam, Community Service Prefect, and her council worked eagerly to boost the morale of Dio girls by providing the opportunity to give back. The council had great success with one of their lockdown ideas, the Dio Food Drive. Sabreen says: “This year wasn’t what I was expecting in terms of Community Service. But perhaps, now more than ever, we have a chance to serve our community in a time when service is needed the most.”

Right: Community Service Prefect Sabreen Islam with the huge collection of boxed food items bound for the City Mission. Below: The Arts Council adopted the theme ‘Tuwhera’ – being open to new ideas, challenges and experiences.

DIO TODAY

Special thanks go to the House leaders for motivating their houses, and to the amazing girls of the Community Service Council for helping to collect, count and coordinate food items. COVID-19 has had a far-reaching impact on all New Zealanders, particularly those who are already vulnerable. Through our Food Drive, we’ve been able to make a difference to the community and support the work of the City Mission. The 7257 food donations we collected were enough to fill 1200 food parcels. Sabreen and her team are currently planning a Service Week for Term 3, as well as working towards Daffodil Day and Relay for Life in support of the Cancer Society. Zoe Zhu, Academic Prefect, felt the uncertainty around the future of our academics. It was tough navigating what would happen with NCEA and IB internal and external assessments, which caused a bit of anxiety for the girls. Zoe, along with her council, spread the message over the lockdown period that we could use this time to find our passions academically. The council also stressed the importance of balance between school and our extracurricular activities. To help address this, the girls

created an Academic Newsletter that enabled them to share ways to work more effectively. One example was their Dio Wall Planner. Designed by Jo Zhang and Katherine Yu, the Dio Wall Planner comes in various beautiful colours and helps students to visualise their schedule and manage their time wisely. Academics at Dio changed significantly for everyone with the introduction of online schooling, although, with the help of teachers and senior management we were provided with excellent support. It was beneficial seeing a more personal side to our teachers inside the walls of their homes, enabling us to build a closer relationship with them. We were able to have a laugh about the annoying pet or the accidental interruption from family in our Microsoft Team calls! We cannot express enough how grateful we are for our Dio teachers who went above and beyond to ensure we were coping academically, and also mentally. The many events and special occasions that were postponed challenged us as Year 13s to alter and adapt our original plans for the year. Events such as the Birthday Concert and the School Ball, which hold so much meaning and excitement for the Year 13s, were almost ripped away from us, but with the

LEADING Year 13 Birthday Concert dance finale

support of our Dean, Ms Cusdin, and the Senior Management team, these events were rescheduled, just slightly later in the School calendar. Hazel Francis, Ball Prefect, said: “There were some moments of uncertainty, but we never lost hope!” This mindset has helped us stay positive throughout our final year at school. Hazel and her council’s goal for the night is to ‘make sure everyone is feeling fabulous and to create an event that is much like this year – one of a kind! We are very excited about our ball this year, which is being held on 19 September! Another key event in the School Calendar is the annual Birthday Concert. Stella Murray, Birthday Concert Prefect, along with Jaime Shorter, Media Prefect, utilised the lockdown period to plan a Birthday Concert with a new set of rules. Even before COVID-19, the pressure associated with the Birthday Concert was demanding, but Stella remained cool, calm and collected. They had to plan an event with social distancing and attendee maximum numbers in mind in case the lockdown restrictions continued. At one point the Birthday Concert was going to be filmed and watched by tutor groups via video, rather than a live performance!

However, a rescheduled date allowed a live concert, greatly appreciated by the whole school. Our House Prefects have done an incredible job keeping up House spirit – Tori Jones, Laura Whitley, Lotty Lobb, Kaitlyn Mallon, Milly Johnston, Emma Badger, Amy Choi and Aarushi Parasrampuria continued to stay active on their House Instagram pages. They also made sure to stay in frequent contact with their teacher Heads of House to plan out the rest of the year. The Community Service Food Drive was turned into a new House event, with tremendous success. The next big event is House Music and Dance in August, and we are all beyond excited. Overall, we cannot ignore the challenges COVID-19 created and the feelings of anxiety and disappointment that lockdown produced. However, as a cohort and wider school, we never lost sight of the future, which has ultimately made our Dio community stronger. Regardless of being at home, we still felt we were connected as a School. Lockdown brought home the importance of community, and how powerful it can be. Knowing we were all on this journey together gave us

hope. Each day at school together post lockdown is one to treasure and a reward for our hard work as a country. As Head Prefects, we wanted to say a big thank you to the Year 13s. You have made the first six months together a smooth ride, despite the craziness that has been thrown our way! We will forever be grateful to our teachers and the senior management for going the extra mile for all students in our Dio family. Although lockdown was tough, our Dio community remained positive, which made the light at the end of the tunnel appear so much brighter. Now we have reached that light it’s time to enjoy the rest of our final year together. Bring it on! DIO TODAY

H E R I T A G E

Performing Arts Centre The Diocesan Performing Arts Centre project is the culmination of 24 years of strategic planning and the campus plan developed in 1995 has brought many changes across the campus.

DIO TODAY

To the many donors who contributed to the Grand Circle Campaign for the Diocesan Arts Centre, we thank you sincerely for your fantastic support over the five years of the campaign. We could not have achieved this result without you.

This is a building we are very proud of and one that captures the essence of what is special about Dio. The new facility accommodates three major interconnected functions for the Performing Arts curriculum – music, drama and dance; an art gallery/ function foyer and a 920-seat auditorium. It sits in the most prominent location on campus and creates a respectful setting for School House and the 110-year-old St Barnabas Chapel. The design process called for elegance and respect of the scale and historical context of the campus, while showcasing the innovation, talent and vibrancy of life for students enrolled in the School. The site marks the northern gateway, and the building will become a signature of the School through its interface with the community. Many people and organisations have been involved in creating the Performing Arts Centre over the past

IT’S ALMOST SHOWTIME

Take Your Seat before the curtains open to the Arts Centre Auditorium. Visit www.takeyourseat.co.nz

five years starting with Phase 1, the teaching spaces, open in February 2017, through to Phase 2, the theatre, being completed in August 2020. Our grateful thanks to all involved in bringing the vision to reality: •M cIldowie Partners in association with Upton Architects • Aspec Construction Limited •M PM Projects •H olmes Consulting (NZ) •A urecon •S hand Shelton •M arshall Day Acoustics • Maltbys Ltd •T he Diocesan Campus Development Board committee led by Ian Goodall •a nd many past and present Diocesan staff. Many of the end-of-year events will take place in the auditorium late in Term 3 and in Term 4 and this will be an opportunity to visit the theatre and see what an amazing facility it is for the School and the wider community. The official opening of the Performing Arts Centre will take place early in 2021.

LEADING

THE PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE

NK Y

DIO TOGETHER 2020 at work helping our families

his year will be remembered by history for many reasons. But the global impact of COVID-19 will always be the most significant. It has affected us all in many different ways, and some far more than others. While that impact is being felt far and wide, our aim at Diocesan has been to keep things as constant as possible for the education of our girls. The Dio Together 2020 appeal was launched early in June to raise funds to ensure our students and families impacted by the crisis are well supported. Together we hit the initial target of $100,000 in just two weeks

and the fund currently stands at more than $107,000. We greatly appreciate the wonderful generosity and encouragement of the Dio community in response to this appeal. We have a bonus goal of $125,000 and the appeal will remain open until the end of the year for those of you who may wish to contribute. The School is matching contributions dollar for dollar and already the Dio Together 2020 bursary funds are at work helping our families. This is a wonderful example of the values within our School, the warmth and compassion that defines our community and the difference we

can all make. Times are challenging for everyone, and we have much appreciated those who have contributed and those who are simply unable to but have found other ways to help with kindness. We continue to encourage families in financial difficulty to contact us to discuss options as we acknowledge the months ahead will remain an uncertain time financially. All funds raised will be held in the Heritage Foundation Student Bursary Fund and allocated by December for the 2020/21 school years. For more information on the Fund, please visit www.charidy.com/Dio.

Mary Pulling roses A fresh batch of this fabulous rose has been grown by Matthews Nurseries from the budwood we cut in January 2019. The roses, ready for planting, arrive at Dio in late July. We have received a great response and orders are now fully subscribed. Following a long annual tradition started by Archivist Evan Lewis and Dio Today editor Liz McKay after the blooming of the School’s first planting of Mary Pulling roses, recently Angela Coe, Deb Sharpe and Evan visited the gravesite of Dio’s first Headmistress at Purewa Cemetery, taking along a bunch of the fragrant creamy yellow blooms. The roses were especially propagated for the School’s centenary in 2003/2004 and since then three further batches have been grown for sale to the School community.

DIO TODAY

Escape to Queenstown Providing you with the largest selection of premium holiday homes, villas and apartments in Queenstown. +64 3 450 0489 | luxuryrentals@nzsir.com nzluxuryrentalhomes.com

Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated. Browns Real Estate Limited (licensed under the REAA 2008) MREINZ.

L E A R N IN G

Gold Scholars’ Award winners From left to right: Anneke Cummack, Emma Wong She and Sharon Hung.

Scholars’ Awards This year we were unable to hold our usual Scholars’ Dinner, so on Wednesday 1 July we recognised the girls who gained Scholars’ Awards from the November 2019 NCEA and IB exams at a Full School Assembly.

DIO TODAY

LEARNING Academic Prefect Zoe Zhu

he COVID pandemic put paid to a lot of events in Terms 1 and 2 that were unable to be re-scheduled and the annual Scholars’ Dinner was one of those. But if COVID has taught us nothing else, it has taught us to re-think the ways we do things. This year the Scholars’ Awards were presented at a Full School Assembly. Academic Prefect Zoe Zhu was still able to present her speech to the School and took the opportunity to focus on the rather unhealthy obsession with the ‘Dio E standard’. She talked about the need to be open minded and creative in our learning. On average a child asks 73 questions a day, but that diminishes as we get older – imagine how many chances to learn we would open up if we asked more questions! Emma Wong She reminded us all that we were challenged to learn in new ways through lockdown and we need to keep up the momentum with those changes. This year Anneke Cummuck, Sharon Hung and Emma Wong She were able to return to school to collect their gold awards; other winners May Jang, Jemima Po and Shellie Hu are overseas studying. It was lovely to welcome them back to the School (and give them a quick tour of the Arts Centre) and to present Emma with the Diocesan Board Scholarship of $5000 for being the top Scholarship winner of 2019. An achievement is a thing done successfully with effort, skill or courage. It is great to acknowledge success and we should never be shy in saying

SILVER SCHOLARS – YEAR 12 An award is won from Level 1 of the NCEA by a student gaining a grade average of 90 or more in her subjects in the Year 11 year. • Christiana Ballard • Rosie Boisen • Lily Bond • Jemima Box • Joomee Choi • Madison Coldham • Jasmine Druskovich • Imogen Foley • Holly Graney • Halle Gravatt • Sienna Gray • Jasmine Ha • Matilda Hol • Priscilla Huang • Sam Huddart

• Charlotte Hulme • Lara Johns • Natalie Kirke • Shania Kumar • Bonnie Liu • Emilia Mackenzie • Lottie Mandeno • Phebe Mason • Natasha Mori • Bethany Ngai • Olivia Pearce • Ava Phillimore • Halle Rankin Hastie • Georgia Richardson • Eloise Robinson

to each other: “Great job – well done!” Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime Minister of England, said: “Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it.” Head of Senior School Margaret van Meeuwen said at the awards presentation: “Achievement is not a one-off event; it is a process. The big successes we are acknowledging today are the outcome of a process you are all involved in at the moment. Make sure that you enjoy your small achievements along the way that are also part of the achievement process that leads to success. To all of the prize winners today – great job and well done from us all here at Dio!”

• Ella Ross • Katie Ryan • Kiara Selvaratnam • Amelie Thomas • Melissa Uren • Heidi van der Peet • Jess Wech • Kate Wellington • Jesse Welsh • Lauren Williams • Ella Wong • Alex Wright • Sarah Young

“Achievement is not a one-off event; it is a process. Make sure that you enjoy your small achievements along the way that are also part of the achievement process that leads to success.” Head of Senior School Margaret van Meeuwen

DIO TODAY

GOLD SCHOLARS In Year 13 the Gold Scholar award goes to students who gain either three or more subject scholarships or an NZQA Top Scholar Award or a 40 score in the Diploma. • Anneke Cummack Scholarships in biology, chemistry, physics and technology

SILVER SCHOLARS – YEAR 13 An award is won from Level 2 of the NCEA by a student gaining a grade average of 90 or more in her subjects in the Year 12 year. Year 12 Diploma students who receive Academic Honours or Academic High Distinction in the previous year’s School Prize Giving will be awarded a Scholar’s Award. If the student was awarded a Silver Scholar award in Year 11 then this Level 2 award will be a Gilded Award. • Kristen Hansen • Milly Johnston • Lauren Komie • Sarina Mackey

DIO TODAY

• Sharon Hung Scholarships in English, music and classical studies

•E mma Wong She Scholarship in English and Outstanding Scholarships in classical studies and biology. Emma was also the top student in classics in the country.

•M ay Jang IB total of 40

• Abigail Mills • Hope Stack • Diane Wang

GILDED SCHOLARS • Chloé Hickin • Isobelle Brosnahan • Anna Casey • Amy Choi • Teresa Gu • Deborah Huang • Jessica Hunter • Lena Jacob • Nicole Lockie • Arabella Loveridge

•S hellie Hu IB total of 40

•J emima Po Scholarships in chemistry, physics and Health and PE

• Xiao Dan Ma • Amali Madawala • Kaitlyn Mallon • Francesca Masfen • Aarushi Parasrampuria • Sarah Tran • Brooke Vincent • Alice Waldow • Zoe Zhu

BOARD SCHOLARSHIP The final award was the top Scholarship student who was awarded the Board Tertiary Scholarship of a value of $5000. This year, the award went to Emma Wong She. Emma won three scholarships, two at Outstanding level, and was the top student in the country for classical studies. For this achievement Emma was also named as an Outstanding Scholar by NZQA and as part of this award she received $5000 for three years and the Top in Subject Award, which carries a prize of $2000 for three years.

espite this year being full of unprecedented events, we were fortunate enough to be able to still hold the Soapbox competition, now a Diocesan tradition, albeit in a slightly different format. This really is testament to the unique ethical dilemmas this new decade has presented us – be it how to respond to a pandemic, arming the police force or deciding how best to remember New Zealand’s racist past. The year 2020 has taught us how powerful individuals can be when speaking up about what they are passionate about. We had over 100 students from Years 7 to 13 speak on a variety of issues ranging from mental health to climate change to racism sparked by COVID-19. Our finalists, whose soapboxes were broadcast for the first time to the School in an online format, all spoke confidently, eloquently and passionately.

Image: Cowes Bay House Architect: Cheshire Architects Photographer: Samuel Hartnett

Ethics Soapbox competition winners Ella Riley (left) and Pascale Vincent (right)

The Junior High School finalists were Pascale Vincent, Victoria Wright, Bharathi Manikandan, all from Year 10, and Violet Tucker from Year 8. Pascale won with a powerful speech about how damaging beauty expectations can be, while Bharathi Manikandan came runner-up. With the online format, we also allowed the student body to vote for a speech to receive the People’s Choice award, which was also won by Pascale.

from Year 12, and Ella Riley from Year 11 won through as finalists. Ella won the competition in the senior division with a compelling slam poem about how we need to be more open with our mental health, rather than hiding behind the excuse of ‘I’m just tired’. Sarah was runner-up, also presenting a clever slam poem about the increased aggression and racism towards Asians sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The People’s Choice award was also won by Ella. Huge congratulations to the winners, finalists, and all who competed in the Soapbox competition this year. It is more important than ever to take a stand on issues that one feels passionate about and spark debate and open-mindedness. We hope to see this tradition continuing at Diocesan in the future.

In the Senior School, Shania Kumar, Sarah Young and Rosie Leishman all

Ph: 09 356 7107 admin@lcl.co.nz Level 3, 125 Vincent Street, Auckland 1010. www.lindesayconstruction.co.nz

Nina Blumenfeld (TIC) and the Ethics Committee

LEARNING

SOAPBOX COMPETITION 2020

Anabel and Bridget Malaghan

AN unprecedented time IN EDUCATION Greer Newman

“Times of crisis bring new ways of approaching things and the staff have been outstanding in their willingness to deliver their programmes with creativity, collegiality and good humour.” Charlotte Ray

DIO TODAY

Margaret van Meeuwen

At the same time, we started to prepare for the possibility of a school closure in the event that we had a case of coronavirus here at Diocesan. This meant that our faculty teams started to prepare for online learning. While this was not a big step for Dio – much of the work is prepared, disseminated and collaboratively created in a digital format already – there were practical considerations to think about. Would our networks cope if all girls logged on at once? What platform from the many available would we all use, for consistency’s sake? (we chose MS Teams). How would we deal with assessments? How would we help the girls to manage their screen time? Could we at short notice re-jig our programmes to teach units more suited to an online environment? At this point we had not considered that this would go on as long as it did, but the preparation we did meant the transition to the online environment on Thursday 26 March was pretty seamless. It was an eerie feeling on the Tuesday afternoon as staff packed up their classrooms and headed home. The gates were locked, the pool was drained (as we were not granted access during Level 4 to maintain the pool) and we headed into the unknown. At that point we made the decision not to go to the

we realise more than ever is fundamental to schools – the ability of humans to connect personally and therefore to have the social aspect of schools and education that we have always held dear.

“We have not lost time – we have just used it differently.” Heather McRae

holidays early, but to keep up some momentum of learning and maintain our normal holiday period. This proved a good decision and was only possible because of the willingness of our staff to get up to speed so quickly with the new dynamics. We had decided to maintain the regular timetable in the Senior School to give a structure to the day, but quickly realised that it was too intense and too long to spend online during the day. We asked our teachers to pull back, have fewer or shorter online conferences with their classes and more time for independent work by the students. Student surveys since, show that the girls appreciated this, though they did enjoy seeing their teachers in their own environment with their pets and children coming in and out of shot. Some said it made their teachers seem more human! The girls were fantastic throughout this whole process. As cancellations came almost daily, the girls, and especially the Year 13s, remained remarkably pragmatic and acknowledged there were bigger issues at stake than whether House Music or the School Ball would go ahead (and they will). We have surveyed the girls post lockdown and one acutely perceptive girl noted: “We couldn’t enjoy the classes the same way because it was all just learning and none of the other stuff.” That ‘stuff’ is what

LEARNING

ack in January, as we were preparing to return to school at the start of the 2020 academic year, there was already talk of a mystery virus that had apparently begun in the Chinese province of Wuhan. Things moved very quickly and even before the girls returned, we implemented our pandemic plan with the first step being families who had recently returned from China needing to selfisolate before returning to school. At Diocesan we formed a COVID-19 team that met every day right until the return to Level 1. This team was comprised of the Executive team, Health and Safety Director Becki Abbott, Director of Admissions Kate Jones, Director of Boarding Cathy Kirkman and Director of International Students Simone Clarke. And so began a series of almost daily updates to our parent community, keeping them informed of the practices we had established to keep everyone in our community safe.

Times of crisis bring new ways of approaching things and the staff have been outstanding in their willingness to deliver their programmes with creativity, collegiality and good humour. There has been great sharing of ideas and expertise, and despite the intensity of the online programme, staff went out of their way to reach out to the girls in their classes, both as a whole and individually. The staff will have learnt several ‘new tricks’ and their practice will undoubtedly be different going forward. Feedback from parents has been hugely complimentary of the professionalism and the quality of the online learning their daughters experienced. Many said it made them rather wistful to be back at school themselves, the classes were so interesting! Sports and arts coaching and rehearsals continued via Zoom, D45 and D20 fitness classes gave everyone the chance to keep fit, assemblies were delivered (some would say with greater creativity) via a pre-recorded video, and there were one or two Zoom balls on the night of the cancelled ball as girls donned their ball dresses and chatted into the night. However, there is no replacement for the real thing, and it is great to be back on site together. That first day of Level 2 felt like the first day back after the summer holidays, but the July holidays will be appreciated by all as the April ones felt rather abnormal. The fight against COVID will no doubt be a long one. There is uncertainty around overseas travel, and this is particularly upsetting for our international students and staff whose families live overseas. We keep talking about the ‘new normal’ but with no real idea what that normal will look like. What will remain consistent is the kindness, care and compassion of our whole Dio community and the willingness to look after each other whatever the future holds. Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School DIO TODAY

INTRODUCING THE

Middle Years Programme PART 2 The 21st-century world is a constantly changing environment characterised by rapid developments in knowledge, technology and globalisation. Education across the globe is undergoing reform as we look at how we can better prepare our young people for what lies ahead. One of the central pillars of our strategic plan at Dio has always been ‘Our Education’ which has been underpinned by an intention to ‘instil the courage and confidence to positively shape the future’. As we have continued to implement the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) this year, we are further developing ways that we can ‘educate girls at the speed of light’. (Diocesan, 2018)

n order to respond to the demands of preparing young people for a future-focused environment, the IB has developed six researchbased approaches to teaching. These approaches are deliberately broad and allow teachers the flexibility to use different strategies to best suit the needs of their students and the context of the learning. In the MYP (and all IB programmes), teaching is: •B ased on inquiry A strong emphasis is placed on students finding their own information and constructing their own understandings. • Focused on conceptual understanding Concepts are explored in order to both deepen disciplinary understanding and to help students make connections and transfer learning to new contexts. •D eveloped in local and global contexts Teaching uses real-life contexts and examples, and students are encouraged to process new information by connecting it to their own experiences and to the world around them. •F ocused on effective teamwork and collaboration This includes promoting teamwork and collaboration between students but also refers to the collaborative relationship between teachers and students. •D esigned to remove barriers to learning Teaching is inclusive and values diversity. It affirms students’ identities and aims to create learning opportunities that enable every student to develop and pursue appropriate personal goals.

DIO TODAY

LEARNING

• I nformed by assessment. Assessment plays a crucial role in supporting, as well as measuring, learning. This approach also recognises the crucial role of providing students with effective feedback. (IBO, 2017) As part of the MYP implementation process this year, teachers are looking at ways to develop the IB Approaches to Teaching in classes with Year 7 students. In particular, we are focusing on inquiry-based teaching and learning in order to promote age-appropriate levels of student collaboration and independence. During the middle years, emerging adolescents have an increasing need to develop a sense of identity, both individually and within their peer group. This is, however, balanced by a continuing desire to have adult guidance and mentorship. At its core, inquiry learning aims to foster active questioning, which drives student curiosity. At Dio, we are taking a guided inquiry approach; using various types of question to give a balance of direct support from the teacher while encouraging greater levels of student independence. In the MYP, teachers use three types of questions: •F actual questions – which engage students with essential disciplinary groundings and skills.

•C onceptual questions – which require students to make connections between the subject content and the larger conceptual ideas that are driving the learning. • Debatable questions – which require the students to think critically, evaluate perspectives, form opinions and justify them with factual evidence. In Year 7 social studies, students are engaging in a topic called ‘A Sustainable World’. The girls have been developing their understanding of the three main concepts: Systems, Sustainability and Resources. In order to relate this to the real world, they have focused on the context of sustainable practices in the Pacific region. They used this knowledge to suggest ways we could develop sustainable practices here at Dio. During the unit, teachers have used questions to promote individual and collaborative inquiry such as: •F actual – What kinds of resources can you find in the Pacific? and What are the different types of sustainability? •C onceptual – What could New Zealand learn from the Pacific in terms of sustainable resource use? and What systems could we develop at Dio to promote sustainability? •D ebatable – Who should be responsible for resource use in different countries?

Students added to these big questions from the teachers with questions of their own. They used tools such as a question matrix and question dice to help in the formulating of smaller questions for their own research and to stimulate their own curiosity about the topic. Diocesan School for Girls is a Candidate School* for the Middle Years Programme (MYP). The School is pursuing authorisation, expanding its status to a three-programme IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy: a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Dio believes is important for our students. Glen Fleury, MYP Co-ordinator *Only schools authorised by the IB Organization can offer any of its four academic programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the Diploma Programme (DP), or the Career-related Programme (CP). Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorisation will be granted. For further information about the IB and its programmes, visit www.ibo.org

DIO TODAY

FAC

S CU

TY FO L U

Rachel Holland with a Year 13 English class.

ENGLISH Unlike any other subject, the English curriculum requires teachers to foster an enjoyment of language and literature. This is a challenge we in Patteson Building take very seriously.

DIO TODAY

LEARNING

eading and writing are at the core of what we do, and we showcase some striking writing from students here. Communication also happens in oral and visual forms, so both are part of the English curriculum. We celebrate the oral aspect of our curriculum through the annual speech competitions for Years 7 to 10, with the winners speaking at Full School Assemblies. This is done to reinforce the importance of speaking well in today’s world. Developing and defending strong opinions, through the construction of persuasive argument is integral to the English curriculum, which is why we support debating and mooting. Unfortunately mooting fell victim to COVID-19 in 2020 but debating simply moved online. All our teachers are outstanding, and we feature one in particular at present. Rachel Holland is making waves nationally with her writing and presentations. Colleague Michael O’Brien comments: “As a now parttime English teacher, I sit back in awe at how full-timers manage the whirlwind. Rachel Holland takes the job to cyclonic proportions. She has wisdom and skills beyond her years, a passion for texts that challenge and turn children into citizens, and she delivers so emphatically in the classroom. She still has time to share her thoughts in English in Aotearoa, as well as offering resources and national workshops for NZATE (New Zealand Association for Teachers of English). And then she still has time for Sudoku at morning break!” Here is an excerpt from Rachel’s latest article on using sociology to support critical thinking in the English classroom: “For our students, giving them the vocabulary to differentiate between the external forces a character feels in unison or in conflict with, can open up deeper pathways of investigation and insight. Vocabulary used throughout sociology, with which we can equip our students, includes: • norms (the expected patterns of

Year 11 debaters From left to right: Sarah Wong, Riya Raniga and Riya Puja.

“Spoken word, Tournament of Minds, Writing Club, Lit Club, Lit Quiz, debating, mooting, Spelling Bee … so many ways to have serious fun in P Block – come and check us out!”

behaviour associated with societies and social roles), • values (the lasting beliefs around what is desirable and undesirable to a culture or society), • socialisation (the process of learning society’s norms and values), • value consensus (the agreement around shared values by a group, whether all or a select few on behalf of all).” Spoken word, Tournament of Minds, Writing Club, Lit Club, Lit Quiz, debating, mooting, Spelling Bee … so many ways to have serious fun in P Block – come and check us out!

LOCKDOWN While in lockdown, the subject of English had to reshape itself within the codes of MS Teams chats. Often a place where discussion or argument can be found at the heart of the classroom, this was hard to do. Some of the spontaneity and fun was lost through the delay, dodgy wifi and circumspect students who didn’t want to reveal the insides of their bedrooms or the cut of their pyjamas. Not so for some debaters! One of our premier junior debating teams took up the opportunity to move it online, taking part in the first nationwide competition – using DIO TODAY

areas and highlighted to students that reading is not just for those who study literature. Another highlight of the week came in the form of the shared reading time when senior student librarians formed reading circles. Junior High School students were able to join in and hear the senior students read aloud from their favourite childhood novels. This sparked a regular time for this activity throughout the remainder of the 2019 school year, as students became enthralled in senior students’ recounting of Harry Potter’s school years, and Bilbo Baggins’ action-packed adventure from Hobbiton.

Zoom. The Year 11 students Riya Punja, Riya Raniga and Sarah Wong ‘met’ two to three times a week to practise how to approach a moot, and what the potential lines of argument could be, and then competed against students from all over New Zealand, often debating against teams from more senior competitions. The moots were relevant to our times – such as ‘This house would prevent emergency workers from striking’ to ‘This house would ban contact sports’. They report that it was a strange experience, especially not being able to talk to each other across the tables to plan rebuttal. They had half the normal time to prepare their case but said that in fact debating online took away some of the exposure a speaker can feel in front of an audience. The comfort of quarantine had at least some advantages. Our team performed creditably, coming away with three wins out of five rounds. We are tremendously proud of their gumption and grit and wish them well as they return to the Auckland Schools’ Debating competition, which restarted, albeit online, in June. 22

DIO TODAY

LOOKING FORWARD TO TERM 3 When the Dio community comes together to support a cause or issue, we bond as a collective and get to share in creating wonderful memories. In the English Department no goal feels more significant than fostering a lifelong love for reading, which sadly is often in direct competition with visual media rather than being enjoyed alongside it. And thus, English Week was born – an opportunity for senior campus students to share their love of reading and join in engaging with the wide variety of ways that they access this passion in daily life, often without even realising it. English Week in 2019 was a resounding success, with both students and faculty engaging and sharing in their passion for everything literature. Students were thrilled by teachers, beyond just the English Faculty, sharing their favourite novels from their own childhoods, as well as what they were currently reading. These recommendations given for all ages began meaningful conversations across many subject

Finally, the Scavenger Hunt provided the most blood-pumping activity, and the most anticipated event of 2019’s English Week. During this Scavenger Hunt poetic clues were posted around the School, leading students on a hunt based on the solutions: the name of a famous novel and its associated location, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hidden in the Cafeteria. Students went on a mad dash around the senior campus, and especially enjoyed the Dio references, like a copy of Scarface Claw hidden next to a sleeping Ollie outside School House. Based on the success of English Week 2019, the English Department is thrilled to announce our second iteration, occurring in Term 3 Week 6 for Senior School students. The most popular activities, as above, will be repeated for the Junior High and Senior students, while new events will be introduced to engage even more of the Dio community. We are looking forward to having another opportunity to share our passion for literature and reading with you, and we can’t wait to see the enthusiasm and engagement that the students will bring. Susy Carryer, Head of Faculty

LEARNING

STUDENT WORK Here we share some examples of our student work for your enjoyment.

DoN’T TuRn A BlInD EyE Static image commentary

he key theme of my static image is that we as humans cannot turn a blind eye to the destruction of the earth. People are choosing to ignore their negative impact on the environment and the irreversible damages caused. We cannot go on living in blissful ignorance while the earth deteriorates until the point when it’s too late. This message is clearly conveyed using a series of visual techniques. I used contrasting symbols and colours to draw out the emotions of

the viewer and emphasise the extent of environmental damage. In the image the woman is refusing to see a landscape polluted with environmental issues and only focusing on a clean, green landscape. Her closed eye is a visual metaphor showing her choice to ignore the environmental issues facing the earth. She is turning a blind eye to industrial developments, landfills and pollution. I make this scene appear even more negative by removing all colour. Black and white give off emotions of sadness, lifelessness and destruction. In contrast, the brightly coloured scene gives positive connotations – lands almost untouched by humans. Animals run free in this coloured scene, as symbols of happiness, freedom and a healthy lifestyle. In contrast a large

rubbish tip and polluting factory cover the majority of the black and white scene, as symbols of industrial pollution and irreversible damage to the environment. An additional colour contrast used is the tone of the woman’s skin. The side closest to pollution is less vibrant, showing both despair and poor health, whereas the other half of the woman appears more healthy and happy based on her skin tone. A final technique used is layering. The woman is placed on top of all the other images to portray the power of humans. Not only have we caused all this destruction, but we are also the only ones with the power to fix it. Hannah Bell, Year 11 DIO TODAY

Ivy wows with her narrative writing For a recent assessment, Year 8 student Ivy Barrington produced a piece of writing that has warmed the hearts and wet the eyes of all of those who have read it. Her piece, The Butterfly Brooch, is a thoughtful and earnest piece about what it means to grieve, and how we are able to remember those we love when they are not with us.

THE BUTTERFLY BROOCH W hen Grandma Anne died, Nina felt as if her whole life had been swallowed up by the dark empty space that was constantly chasing her.

She watched the raindrops race each other down the car window and smiled sadly at the memory of her and Grandma Anne betting sweets on which raindrop would win in the taxi ride to their hotel in London. As the car pulled into the driveway, Nina felt a slight flutter of light in her stomach, but it was squashed down by the realisation that her grandmother wouldn’t be there to greet her. “Are you sure you’ll be all right sweetie?” her mother asked as she opened the car door. Nina nodded, and began to walk up the three small wooden steps. The same three steps where Grandma Anne had bandaged her leg up after she grazed her knee. She knocked on the door with a heavy heart, and seconds later Grandpa Sal opened it and wrapped his arms around her. “Hi Grandpa!” It felt good to embrace him, he who felt the same sorrow she did. After tea and cakes, Nina politely excused herself. She ran her hands up the cool smooth bannister. The atmosphere just wasn’t right without Grandma. She walked over to the small antique cabinet and picked up the photo of her and Grandma Anne at the park, feeding the ducks, and touched the cheerful, loving face behind the glass. “Oh, how I miss you Grandma.”

DIO TODAY

Suddenly, she remembered the attic filled with boxes of old love letters and photos. She reached for the cord, dangling above her head and pulled hard. Cautiously, Nina climbed the steps and hoisted herself up into the old musty room. It was just as she remembered: letters, photos, old war medals. Nina moved over to a box and as she carefully lifted the heap of letters from the top, something shiny caught her eye. A brooch, possibly belonging to her grandmother. She picked it up and was filled with a strong connection, as if her Grandma Anne was there. And suddenly, without warning she was in a garden. Not any garden, but Grandma Anne’s garden from when she was a little girl. Nina had seen it in photos. She was shocked but somehow felt as if she were in the right place, as if she was meant to be there.

Dizzily, Nina picked herself up and started towards the veggie patch, as if she’d known the place her whole life. Vibrant spots of colour blowing in the breeze jumped out at her and a few bumble bees buzzed by. Nina breathed in the sweet-smelling air and felt as if that dark empty space had disappeared. Then, soft as ever, she heard a voice. She turned around but there was nothing there. “Nina!” she heard again and realised it was a little girl’s voice; her grandma’s voice. It was coming from behind the garden shed. Nina ran over and there was her grandma Anne as a little girl, playing with her puppy. “Hello Nina!” the girl said. “Hi Grandma...I mean Anne! Why am I – how did I get here?” Nina asked.

Nina looked down and saw that she was still holding it, only now feeling the weight of it in her palm. “So, you mean to get out of here – the past – I need to find a brooch?” Anne nodded. It didn’t feel real. This was the sort of stuff that only happened in books. “But where is it?” Nina questioned. Anne shrugged. “In your memories.” And with that the little girl skipped off, out of Nina’s grasp. She was gone, just like Grandma. “In my memories, in my memories…” she recited. What had Grandma Anne told her when she showed Nina the photo? Grandma Anne did gymnastics on the lawn… that’s all Nina remembered. She racked her brain for hints about the brooch. Nina retraced the steps of her grandmother and walked over to the rose bushes. This was where Grandma Anne did cartwheels when she was bored. “Perhaps the brooch fell off there!” Nina exclaimed. She hurriedly got on her hands and knees and searched for it on the drying grass. Her eyes searched frantically but her mind stayed on one question. Did she really want to leave this garden, Grandma Anne’s past? She had felt such a strong connection here, such a strong feeling that the person she loved most would come back. Nina desperately wanted to escape that dark empty space, but would going back to the present make her forget about her grandmother? I must, she thought and determinedly marched over to the bird bath. Nina had been told that the bird bath was most fascinating to Anne. She would stand on her tippy-toes every day after school to take a peek at the tiny, winged creatures sipping happily. Staring into the murky water, Nina studied her reflection. It was nothing like how it used to be. She

LEARNING

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine. But to escape your past you must find the brooch, the matching brooch to the one you’re holding.”

looked gloomy and upset instead of happy and curious. It was then that Nina noticed something. A shiny butterfly shape submerged in the water: the identical brooch to the other. Relieved, Nina put her hand into the cold water and looked around sadly. “Goodbye garden, goodbye Grandma.” And with a tear in her eyes, she picked up the wet, slimy brooch. She was back in the present. Back in the attic of Grandpa Sal’s house. But instead of the sick feeling that she constantly had in her stomach, Nina felt fresh and new. All of the tense feelings and worries were gone, all left behind in Grandma Anne’s garden. The dark empty space was finally gone. The weight on her shoulders had been lifted. However much she missed Grandma, she had decided to move on. Not forget or stop loving her, just start a new chapter. Once again, she studied herself in the old round mirror hanging on the wall. Her cheeks were full of colour again and her short blonde hair was shining. And for the first time in months, she smiled.

DIO TODAY

Looking for that

BIG’

‘

IDEA

HOW TO THINK CONCEPTUALLY, USE A VISUAL LANGUAGE TO COMMUNICATE TO OTHERS AND SHOW THEM HOW I SEE.

wo Diocesan students who entered for Scholarship in the visual arts in 2019 were notable for different reasons.

Year 13 student Jes Samuels entered for Scholarship in photography. Her portfolio was awarded a scholarship and also selected for the Top Art Exhibition. This exhibition is a selection of work by students in each arts field and from every part of New Zealand. The exhibition provides an opportunity for students and teachers to gain an understanding of what is required to achieve Excellence at Level 3. Jes’ portfolio and workbook addressed a very personal theme and something that had impacted on her ability to learn. In her workbook Jes discusses her theme – ‘The dyslexic mind’: 26

DIO TODAY

LEARNING Portfolios Top: Jes Samuels Bottom: Alice Waldow

DIO TODAY

“This topic came to mind when I was choosing the theme to base my photos on. I wrote some ideas down and had a mind blank when trying to spell ‘pattern’. I realised this was because of my dyslexia, giving me the idea to use this to my advantage and make it the topic of the portfolio. “It was hard for me to convey what certain types of dyslexia feel like to others through my photos because I have lived my whole life with it. I don’t know any different. I talked to peers about their experiences with specific learning difficulties – or lack of – and this allowed me to ‘see the world’ from different perspectives, thus giving me more ideas and being able to produce work that is not specific to one person. “Newspapers were a useful material because the thin paper allows light to shine through whilst silhouetting the words on the front and the back. This created a backwards/double word effect, making it hard to focus on the words. This is how some dyslexic brains perceive text in books and elsewhere.” To gain Excellence in visual arts fields, students must produce a systematic body of work that synthesizes conventions and regenerates a depth of ideas. Regeneration encourages students to re-examine their concept and explore new ways to communicate their idea. Jes successfully revisited and reformed her concept while experimenting with a range of photographic conventions. Her experimental approach highlights her use of digital manipulation, studio photography and the unconventional technique of removing text from the photograph using a laser cutter. Photography has provided Jes with an opportunity to communicate to the viewer a fresh perspective on how the people who live with dyslexia may experience it.

Alice Waldow, a Year 12 student entered for Scholarship in painting. In 2019, Alice chose Level 2 painting as one of her subjects. She displayed exceptional facility and insight as she began her studies and was encouraged

DIO TODAY

to enter for Scholarship. This meant she needed to enter for the Level 3 external standard. She successfully completed her Level 2 programme, achieving Excellence overall and also attended the painting Scholarship class. Alice prepared a third panel and the workbook as required and gained Excellence for her portfolio and a Scholarship in painting. Alice has a deep and authentic concern for the natural environment and more specifically the preservation of our birdlife, and diverse cultural heritage. She researched colonisation, Ma-ori cultural beliefs and traditions, and chose specific motifs to represent her conceptual ideas. A proposal needs to be sufficiently open-ended to include a number of options for development, yet well enough defined to be manageable and enable achievement. In formulating and developing a proposal, extensive research into art and artworks (including procedures, processes and techniques) is essential and must be documented in the workbook. Alice constantly revisited and redefined her approach to ensure that her work was consistent with her intent and approach. Her workbook provided evidence of her individually conceived proposal and revealed the depth of her thinking, her comprehensive testing and planning, and how she worked towards individual solutions to pictorial problems. For Scholarship, the candidate needs to send a workbook consisting of eight pages in an A3 clearfile with their portfolio. The workbook begins with a proposal, brief or proposition. Students prepare for this at the beginning of their course by presenting an individually conceived and designed proposal (plan or framework) for their Studio Practice, which will be presented on their portfolio. The proposal (plan

or framework) sets out the boundaries and the nature of the project to be worked upon. Research is the key to a successful proposition. The objective is to develop an individual course of study from selected subject matter, based on a systematic approach to learning founded on recent and established practice. Students should show purposeful decision making, facility and fluency with the tools and processes in the context of their art making. The outline for the workbook is developed from understanding the assessment criteria. The three assessment categories are: •A nalysis: Work shows evidence of on-going evaluation through reflection, critique and contextual research. Analysis may include, but not be limited to, personal contexts, situational contexts and cultural contexts surrounding the making of work, which allows for practical exploration, synthesis and communication. •S ynthesis: The bringing together of all outcomes of practical exploration, research and analysis, so that they interact to form a holistic entity. •C ommunication: Communication by explicit and implicit means of all ideas, concepts and issues relevant to the chosen field of practice. Communication is effected through the process of making work (ie making ideas manifest through processes and procedures) as well as by the means of presentation. The portfolio and workbook combine to present a coherent whole. The workbook informs the reading of the portfolio and is not a step-by-step descriptive outline of what is on the panels. Both students successfully met the criteria with their submissions and the Art Department and Arts Faculty commend them on their achievements. Shelley Ryde HOD Visual Arts Toni Carter TIC Photography

LEARNING Above and below: The first and eighth pages of Alice Waldow’s workbook.

DIO TODAY

ithin the cake design industry it is not uncommon to have to work with clients who have a range of diverse needs and wants. The role of the technologist is to manage these expectations with their expertise, ensuring that a product is conceptually creative and still functional. In order to stay in business, the final product must look and taste amazing, be delivered on time and come in on budget, which I am happy to say all our girls achieved beautifully.

A celebration of

CAKES

This past term Year 11 food design technology students were again given the challenge of creating a cake to share with different departments around our School on Friday 12 June in celebration of Diocesan’s 116th birthday.

DIO TODAY

As designers-in-training, Level 1 food design technology students had the opportunity to work with authentic stakeholders from the wider School community. The brief gave them the experiences of balancing the competing factors a designer from any discipline would experience in the industry. It was all about extending students technically and conceptually while working to a time deadline and giving them an authentic experience from which to learn and grow. Students needed to consider both the aesthetic and functional aspects of the cake while catering to food allergies and dietary preferences. Making the cakes for authentic stakeholders made the students aware of deadlines,

LEARNING

“This has exceeded our expectations and given us exactly what we asked for as well as being beautiful.” “I thought that it was a bought cake at first as the presentation was fantastic.”

DIO TODAY

Celebrating School Birthday The observance of the School Birthday is one of our oldest traditions here at Diocesan. Early Chronicles suggest that the School has always celebrated the anniversary of its opening and dedication. In the early years of the School, the birthday was often used as a suitable occasion for significant events. In 1910, the first time the School squeezed into the Chapel of Saint Barnabas was for Birthday Prayers. School Birthday 1912 was the first occasion that saw the whole School turned out in the newly introduced uniform. The Hall frieze was also completed in May and June of 1912 so it could be given as a birthday gift. From 1906 until 1927, the School Birthday involved two principal ingredients. Firstly, instead of the regular School Prayers appointed for the day, the School would instead offer the hymns, readings and prayers used at the School’s dedication in 1904. Secondly, classes would end towards the middle of the day when the School would assemble in the Hall to be entertained by the senior girls.

gave them experience in liaising with and managing stakeholders’ needs and working with industry software (Menucoster) to ensure raw material costs were managed. The large-scale project will be assessed in NCEA Level 1 Achievement Standards covering conceptual design, understanding of design elements, project planning and management. A total of 13 credits present a comprehensive portfolio that documents their design journey. The assignment was a bit harder this year with Coronavirus, as it was for many practical subjects, however the girls were self-directed and managed to plan their work over lockdown as well as getting stuck in once they were back at school and able to use the facilities. Two cakes are still in the pipeline for the Old Girls’ League as they were not able to be here on the day, so we haven’t stopped baking yet! 32

DIO TODAY

Food design technology is a popular subject at Diocesan. Students use the creative and analytical processes of design in a variety of contexts through the wider creative industries. The subject combines creative and critical thinking, giving students the opportunity to experiment, create, gather feedback, redesign and deliver their products while experimenting and exploring the world around them. Students were delighted with their final cakes and the positive feedback and recognition they received. They all felt that this was a rewarding and fun way to complete the assessment and especially valued the opportunity to work with real stakeholders to create lovely, tasty cakes. As much work as it all was, the comments back from the students were all positive and their families absolutely loved the tests and trials over lockdown! Zenobia Groenewegen, TIC

In Miss Sandford’s time, School Birthday became an occasion reserved especially for the Juniors who would gather in the Hall on a Saturday afternoon for games, party treats and most importantly, birthday cake! Miss Sandford is recorded as welcoming the little ones personally and joining in the fun and games. The senior girls continued to provide entertainment for what became known as Miss Sandford’s Party, and that tradition of providing entertainment continues to this day. Birthday cake was first provided by the School Council in 1929, and thereafter remained an important part of School Birthday celebrations, often iced in school colours and blazing with candles. In 1973 however, the 7th Form girls began making birthday cakes themselves, which were enjoyed, one cake to each class (and also provided for the staff), after the annual concert. This year the cakes were shared amongst House groups. For the past two years the Year 11 food technology students have provided cakes for all the staff. Information courtesy of Evan Lewis, Archivist

LEARNING

JUNIOR SCHOOL

A MOST EXCITING DAY! On Monday 22 June, the School’s new Norfolk pine playground, which is in two sections, was officially opened in an early-morning ceremony.

“It feels magical when I look out of the window across the field and see the sensational playground.” Andee Bell 4SN

DIO TODAY

With the girls assembled on the astroturf, there was great excitement in the air as the formalities were completed and a draw of names revealed the lucky girls to be the first to experience the playground equipment. Year 6 student Scarlett Archibald made this speech on behalf of the Junior School girls.

“Good morning Ms McRae, Mrs Brewin, invited guests and the Junior School. It is my privilege today to speak on behalf of all the Junior School girls. “We are here today to open our new Norfolk pine playground – we are beyond excited! “Since the pines were cut down, over the past months we’ve watched it being built and now cannot wait to play on it. “We would like to thank the Board of Governors, Ms McRae, Mrs Brewin, and Parents and Friends of Dio for making this happen. Special mention to Parents and Friends for their incredible donation towards the project, making it possible. Thank you also to everyone who has worked on the project including Melissa, Deb and Sione from our property team. “When I was in Foundation Class the playground was a very fun place and I have great memories of playing on it, but this playground is mind blowing. Our playground space has expanded enormously with this project. Being able to walk up into the forest and explore is incredible. I’m looking forward to having a go on that giant slide and the monkey bars! “Our playtimes will now be the highlight of our days – good luck getting us back to class! So, on behalf of the Junior School, thank you so much. We promise to look after our new playground and have lots of fun!”

DIO TODAY

“There is only one word to describe how I am feeling right now … joyful! My body is jumping up and down, my hands are shaking with excitement. When will it be my turn?” Zoe Manson 3J1

LEARNING

The Foundation Class watched the progress of the building of the playground with great interest. They were able to chat with the builders and ask questions about what they were doing as the months progressed. The girls worked together to plan and create a playground of their own. They also made a card to thank the builders for all their hard work.

“Wow! Our new playground looks ginormous! I can’t wait to go on it! The new slide looks so cool and I like the wobbly bridge. It will be fun zooming across! I am going to play spies with my friends in the secret cave.” Maia Green 2JO

“It was very exciting to see the playgrounds slowly progressing. I heard that the playgrounds were being made out of recycled wood which is so much better for the environment than plastic playgrounds. I like that they have put plants out in front of the playground too because it gives a peaceful tranquility to the area around the playground.” Sophia Warren 6LS DIO TODAY

SSONS E L IN During COVID-19 the Junior School day continued for everyone – but online! Teachers worked with their classes in multiple online platforms, using their class blogs to communicate, and learning continued as seamlessly as possible.

steep learning curve for everyone, but committed to with the same passion and excellence as always. We loved the sharing and feedback from families at home, many of whom sent in photos of their girls engaged with learning.

period. We appreciate that for many families it wasn’t easy to juggle your own work, school studies and family living in your home. Our staff have shared exactly the same challenges as they too worked from home and juggled online teaching duties with their own family responsibilities.

Then after weeks of school done differently, the days of lessons in pyjamas, eating breakfast while reading and writing, Zoom meetings and iPads on tap were officially over. In a morning filled with smiles, squeals of excitement, a pinch of nervousness and chatter aplenty, our girls returned to school as we moved to COVID-19 Level 2. It was fantastic to be back!

I am incredibly proud of the work of our teachers, and equally impressed with the enthusiasm of our students. The real magic of teaching and learning occurs when the zest and enthusiasm of a teacher is blended with the curious mind of a young learner. This powerful recipe is why we chose to become teachers and is why we have been so eager to welcome your girls back to school.

Thank you all for supporting your children’s learning during the lockdown

“It was a totally new experience and I enjoyed it.”

“I loved online home learning because I love school. I love my teacher and my class and I don’t mind being independent too.” 36

DIO TODAY

Sue Brewin, Head of Junior School

LEARNING

“Our family is absolutely thrilled with the level of teaching over this online period.”

“Special thanks to all the teachers for the online learning! It was a first time for all of us, but we really appreciate the great effort the Dio team put in.”

“I felt really lucky to be able to continue learning in lockdown.”

DIO TODAY

L IVIN G CHAPLAINCY

Who is my neighbour? T he world continues to be beset with the COVID-19 virus with many countries still in the grip of thousands of new daily cases. The United States of America is the worst hit country with well over 100,000 deaths. The USA has also seen significant uprisings and protests as a result of the death of George Floyd, an African American man, at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis on 25 May. The world has sat up and taken notice and there has been a renewed push to eradicate racism in the Western world. The slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ has been used in protests and acts of solidarity in numerous countries around the world, including New Zealand. In fact, thousands of New Zealanders joined in marches of solidarity with the BLM movement. Some people have responded with a challenge that ‘all lives matter’ but as Year 9 student Talia Wood explained in her winning speech, if you go to the doctor with a broken arm wanting it treated, you would not be happy for the doctor just to say, “Well, all bones matter!” At the moment, many black and indigenous peoples all across the Western world feel broken and in pain. They feel that systems have been designed to favour white people and discriminate against black people. The situation in the US is very concerning and it is clear that there is widespread discrimination against black citizens. Here in New Zealand it is, perhaps, not so clear to many people. However, one area in which it is quite clear is in 38

DIO TODAY

criminal justice. In 2018, Stuff published an interactive exploring New Zealand’s prison population. It uncovered that Ma-ori are more likely to be imprisoned than non-Ma-ori for exactly the same crime, more likely to be imprisoned for almost every category of crime for which non-Ma-ori were given different types of sentences. While this information is not new to many people who show an interest in our criminal justice system, it is a reminder that even though many people know about this, little has been done to confront the injustice that exists. Systemic racism has been part of the fabric of our society since the colonial government began in 1840. But, it is not just Ma-ori who experience racism in New Zealand. Racial inequities are hard to talk about because they engender emotional responses. No one wants to be labelled a racist and there are so many stereotypes about so many different groups of people, and jokes that are made about different cultures, that people feel threatened when it is labelled as prejudice. But, how deeply has each of us really looked into our hearts to check ourselves for seeds of racism and prejudice? Do we have different reactions and responses to people with different skin colour or ethnic identity to us? Do we make assumptions about a person’s character, values, motivations, or backgrounds just based on the colour of their skin or the shape of their eyes? People of other ethnicities do too and have had people yell at them in the street to go back

to their own countries even though they were born here, and their parents were born here, and their grandparents were born here. People on the street and in some work places are told to stop speaking their own languages. These things all stem from our prejudices and biases. Any statements like ‘all black people are…’, ‘all white people are…’ and so on, are never going to be accurate, and stem from prejudice rather than fact.

Christians have been associated with much racism in the past. Some of the most damning examples are: beginning in the Early Church, as Christianity became its own religion rather than merely an aberration of Judaism, and then became the state religion of the Roman Empire, antisemitism and the denigration and humiliation of Jews and Judaism has continued through the centuries; the Crusades against Muslims that occurred between the 9th and 13th centuries; slavery justified by scripture; British colonisation of many non-European countries and the assumption that the colonisers brought civilization with them; and association with the Nazi regime in WWII. These are only a few examples but it is a history that is hard to deny and that highlights the dominance of European attitudes in the Christian Church, to the exclusion of other races and ethnicities. It seems that Christianity became a euro-centric religion that effectively made a darker

LIVING

“It is the mission of the Church to respond to human need with loving service, to show mercy to those in need and to actually do something to help. The voices of need are loud in our communities at the moment.”

DIO TODAY

skinned, radical, refugee Jesus into a blonde, white, meek and mild Jesus. We have a teaching in the Christian Church about the sanctity of life and it is very relevant when we are thinking about racism. The main tenets of the belief about the sanctity of life are that all life is God-given, all life deserves respect, all human life is precious, life is not to be destroyed, and God has a plan for every life. Another significant concept is that all people are equal in the sight of God – no one is of more value than anyone else, and we are all made in the image of God. In the Genesis creation stories, right at the beginning of the Bible, it says, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) God made human beings in God’s image and saw that they were very good. That is human beings in general, not just one group of human beings. There has been a lot of theological debate and discussion over what ‘made in God’s image’ actually means but, whatever it means, it is pretty clear that it has nothing to do with the colour of a person’s skin, their ethnic background, or where they were born. Our Anglican Church here in the province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia endorses the Five Marks of Mission of the Church set out by the Anglican Consultative Council (a representative body that seeks to facilitate cooperative work among the provinces of the Anglican Communion) as follows:

THE FIVE MARKS OF MISSION:

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ 1 To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom 2 To teach, baptise and nurture new believers 3 To respond to human need by loving service 4 To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation 5 To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

The third and fourth marks of mission are particularly relevant when thinking about the current situation regarding BLM in the USA and racism here in our own country. We are called by Jesus to love our neighbour. In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) we learn that being a neighbour is about showing mercy. Jesus changes the question from, “Who is my neighbour?” to “What does it mean to be a neighbour?” According to the third Mark of Mission it is the mission of the Church to respond to human need with loving service, to show mercy to those in need and to actually do something to help. The voices of need are loud in our communities at the moment. The Good Samaritan did not approach the man on the road and say how sorry he was that the man was in such a situation and then leave him there! It is not enough to just hear the voices and either sympathise or empathise. In this context love is a verb – something that we do. This flows into the fourth Mark of Mission – to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of any kind and pursue peace and reconciliation. Again, the imperative here is to activity, not passivity. All Christians are called to act to make a change to promote justice to challenge that which is unjust. Each of us has a sphere of influence in our workplace, our living situation, and our families. We have the opportunity to lobby government, to make decisions about who to vote for based on justice and mercy, to protest like the BLM solidarity people, to treat every person we come across with respect and dignity, and there are no doubt many other ways we could act to challenge injustice also. Here at Diocesan, one of the ways we have decided to act in this space is by significantly increasing the education our students receive around Ma-tauranga Ma-ori so that every student who leaves Dio will have a good understanding of what Ma-ori culture is, of what matters to Ma-ori, of the injustices of the past and how this learning can help shape a better future for Ma-ori in New Zealand. We are on an exciting journey of learning and development as a staff and as a school, and we are looking forward to seeing where this journey takes us – hopefully further towards equality and justice for everyone in our society. Reverend Sandy Robertson, Chaplain

Ph 09 815 4250, humphreyslandscaping.co.nz

LIVING

SERVICE LEARNING

FOOD DRIVE

The impacts of COVID-19 have been far-reaching on all New Zealanders, particularly those who are already vulnerable. In June, the Service Council ran a food drive to support the Auckland City Mission, which has been experiencing an unprecedented number of requests for food parcels from the local community. The Service Council partnered with the House leaders across both the Junior and Senior Schools to bring in as many food items as possible. The response from the School community was incredible and a total of 7250 food items were donated during the week of collections. The City Mission staff noted that this would fill 1200 food parcels and support about 2500 people in our community. It was great to see the School spirit and positive energy from the girls as the Houses attempted to bring in the most items and earn House points. The winning house, Selwyn, was awarded the inaugural Service Cup by Deb Ward,

Fundraising and Reputation Manager from the City Mission at the last Full School Assembly of term (pictured bottom left). The cup will become part of the House competitions in the future. It’s been an incredible opportunity to serve our city in a very practical way and live out our motto Ut Serviamus.

CANCER SOCIETY VISIT As part of our Service Learning programme, the Year 10 students partner with the Cancer Society to plan and run the annual Relay for Life. On 16 June, seven of our Year 10 girls attended a brainstorming session with staff at the Cancer Society’s Auckland Northland Division office. This was an exciting opportunity for our girls to discuss and contribute ideas to help engage secondary students in the annual Daffodil Day appeal. The Cancer Society staff were very impressed with the creativity and passion of the students and and plan to develop a number of their ideas as part of the national campaign. DIO TODAY

PERFORMING ARTS

“To be honest we have learnt so much from this experience – I am going to compile the evidence, see how we can take it into the future, what works really well and how it will change the face of teaching for us.” From one of our performing arts specialists 42

DIO TODAY

LIVING

CONNECTING ONLINE

through music & dance Director of Performing Arts Shelagh Thomson explains how we kept connected during lockdown and how we engaged our performing arts students in activities they are truly passionate about. Our team came up with ‘virtual’ music and dance videos, and this certainly did keep the passion alive. By refocusing, we got inspired by the idea of performance in isolation, then joining the individual bubbles and creating a digital performance platform. Students were sent videos of new choreography, and new music with audio tracks to practise in their own homes. Individual Zoom lessons in all the arts forms were hugely successful – tutors got creative, running sectionals on Teams, where groups of students would meet and play back to teachers, each taking turns while others practised. Believe me, at times the mute facility was very useful!

DIOARTS INSTAGRAM

Nearly 600 of our students continued during lockdown with their private music, drama and dance lessons via digital platforms, with parents watching (and often participating). Many households saw a surge in their children practising instruments, singing, drawing, writing poetry, reading books, learning dance moves, making things – just getting creative in ways that feed the soul! Our performing arts students were super busy in our ‘Virtual Video’ project and these videos provided a connection for all the community. Marketing also saw Facebook viewing ratings soar as each video was released, all clocking over 3000 viewings, and Jessica Marshall’s Last Post, especially recorded for ANZAC Day, hitting a record 6000!

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.” Huge thanks to everyone who made this project possible. Dio has captured an amazing set of lockdown memories. A fantastic commitment under stressful and uncertain times!

Over the 8-week period in Alert Levels 3 and 4, students and staff pumped out one video per week, each release focusing on a different artform and genre.

Our Arts Council, headed by Arts Prefect Anna Casey and Deputy Prefects Jessica Woo and Lucy Bartlett, also got very creative on DioArts Instagram during the lockdown period.

In collaboration with the Marketing Department, they also launched their Dio O campaign, a photo competition for Years 7 – 13 students to create an image that could be a 2021 Dio ‘O’ billboard, and worked on another initiative, ‘Dancing with the Staff’, which will be one of many events celebrating the arts during Arts Week at the end of Term 3.

Their arts challenge initiatives, collaborative partnerships with other School councils, and Arts Interviews with Year 13 leaders not only celebrated the Performing Arts during this challenging period, but also inspired girls across the School to get creative, and to send them their isolation creations.

Tuwhera – to be open, is this year’s Arts Council motto, and their aim was to engage with as many students as possible in 2020 by staying connected. Their social media presence during this unprecedented period not only opened up the arts to all our students, but also assisted them in inspiring and staying connected with our Dio community.

gets creative

Year 12 trumpeter Jess Marshall performed a moving rendition of the Last Post, filmed in lockdown from her bedroom.

MATILDA SUCCESSFULLY ACHIEVES INTERNATIONAL MUSIC DIPLOMAS Year 12 student Matilda Hol has clocked up double diploma status this year. At the beginning of 2020 she was awarded the international ARSM Diploma in Piano and an ATCL Diploma in Violin. She is currently working towards her LTCL Diploma in Viola. Matilda is a very high-achieving musician who plays piano in one of our top trios, leads the viola section in both the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, plays viola in the Dio Octet and is also a violinist in the Auckland Youth Orchestra. These are very impressive achievements indeed across three different instruments. DIO TODAY

Trio Glivenko Dmitri Shostakovich Trio in C minor Op 8. Esther Oh violin; Emma Qiu piano; Joo Kim cello.

NZCT

Chamber music competition Dio wins four major awards at Auckland finals and three groups are selected for national finals! 44

DIO TODAY

LIVING

Above left: Dioctesan Felix Mendelssohn Octet in Eb major Opus 20. Esther Oh violin; Anna Casey violin; Jessica Woo violin; Kaitlyn Mallon violin; Elise Ji viola; Matilda Hol viola; Eva Wu cello; Joo Kim cello. Above right: D’Aquarelles Philippe Gaubert Trio Aquarelles for flute, cello and piano (movt 1 & 2). Helen Kim flute; Matilda Hol piano; Eva Wu cello.

etermined to keep the 2020 NZCT Chamber Music Competition alive and kicking, and despite having lost 10 weeks of rehearsal, Diocesan entered 18 girls in the competition, on a variety of instruments.

The NZCT Chamber Music Contest is the only music competition left for secondary students with live national finals at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington in August. Despite lockdown, this year’s contest drew some 200 group entries nationwide and Diocesan made an impressive run for selection at the national finals. Our groups did us proud at both the district and regional finals. Competing across the northern region we had some great results; four groups received awards at the Auckland finals and three groups were then selected for the regional finals. We were the best represented school with 13 Dio musicians selected for awards: Dioctesan won the Highly Commended Award Trio Glivenko won the Highly Commended Award Aquarelles won the KBB Special Award EveryoneHerz won the Adjudicator’s Award

Everybody Herz Herzogenberg Andante Con Moto. Ella Riley horn; Jessica Marshall trumpet; Anastasia Sun piano.

Three Diocesan groups have made it through to the national finals in Wellington – Dioctesan, Aquarelles and Trio Glivenko. To make the success even sweeter, Trio Glivenko have been announced the outright regional winner. We are thrilled with the results as only 12 groups have been selected from over 200 groups nationwide. This means a quarter of all national finalists are from Diocesan – definitely a new record! Five of our students are Year13s so it is particularly special for them in their final year when so many other competitions have been cancelled. This year, the groups were required to submit live video performances and an additional video of themselves introducing their work. Due to lockdown, no live performances took place at district or regional level, and there was no feedback from adjudicators at all the usual levels of this competition, so in many ways it has been a tougher competition for all our young aspiring instrumentalists across the country. We are delighted with the results, under exceptional circumstances.

Zai Trio Nino Rota Trio for flute, violin and piano (1958). Well done to everyone involved in this success!

Anna Casey violin; Zoe Zhu piano; Isabella Stevens flute. DIO TODAY

DRAMA

SHAKESPEARE SUCCESS The Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand regional festivals were very different this year. Against all the odds the festivals still took place. Groups were required to film performances and submit them to be assessed by the judges. We are delighted to announce that Diocesan won both the five-minute and 15-minute categories. These scenes progressed to the final stage of the festival, the national finals.

Anisha de Silva, Hazel Francis and Phebe Mason performing Othello.

Phebe Mason, Mel Uren and Rosie Leishman were the winners of the five-minute scene for the second year in a row. Their presentation of a scene from Measure for Measure was also awarded Best use of Music. The girls took a feminist twist on the play and highlighted the injustice that Isabella feels within the play. Anisha de Silva, Hazel Francis and Phebe Mason won the coveted 15-minute scene section, beating stiff teacher-directed competition. Their version of Othello set in modern times highlighted the anguish and turmoil of Othello, played by Anisha de Silva. Anisha was rewarded with the Best Director Award 2020. At the SGCNZ National Festival in Wellington both groups were commended on the originality of their work. Othello, directed by Anisha de Silva, was awarded two awards: Outstanding Music/Song Award (adult- or student-directed) donated by Julie Nevett, Morrison Music Trust – Willow Song (Othello) Directed by Anisha de Silva and performed by Hazel Francis and Phebe Mason. Outstanding Presentation from a Tragedy Award donated by BartonRoss Ltd – Othello Directed by Anisha de Silva and performed by Anisha de Silva, Hazel Francis and Phebe Mason. The innovative interpretation of the struggle of Othello was singled out as the most outstanding presentation of a tragedy in the whole festival. 46

DIO TODAY

Phebe Mason, Mel Uren and Rosie Leish man during their prese ntation of Measure for Measure.

LIVING

SHAKESPEARE ORA AOTEAROA Shakespeare Ora Aotearoa is a one-off event, with the support of the Ministry of Youth Development, for young people between 15 and 24 years old. Dio students Phebe Mason and Lily Loveridge were chosen to be part of this amazing experience. During the course of a residential weekend, 30 participants will created a 5- to 10-minute play, using Shakespearean characters as inspiration to explore contemporary issues. These were filmed and made available for schools to stimulate discussion on issues, or be performed as short plays for similar purposes, or even be expandable into longer plays or films! All participants were required to choose a Shakespeare character and bring that person’s lines, alongside a mental health, social or environmental issue they wanted to explore. They worked with Kiwi legend Peter Hambleton to develop their ideas.

Phebe and Lily performing at the workshop

DIO TODAY

Luca Andrews and Anisha de Silva.

THE ACTORS’ PROGRAM INTENSIVE We are delighted that two of our Year 13 drama students were invited to join The Actors’ Program in the holidays for a weeklong intensive. The Actors’ Program is a challenging, up-to-date training course for actors, and is uniquely and directly connected to the stage and screen industries. Luca Andrews and Anisha de Silva completed a rigorous application process to become part of an exclusive company working with the best New Zealand has to offer. Over the intensive five-day programme the girls learnt everything from screen acting to stage combat. The course is aimed at providing training for experienced actors. Luca is a seasoned professional in front of the camera, having played the lead in major films and Anisha has made a name for herself across New Zealand in theatre. Both Luca and Anisha performed in the International Theatre Festival in 2019 as part of the drama trip to Europe and attended workshops at the Royal Shakespeare Company and Red Brick Casting, London. The girls followed in the footsteps of Sadie Sumich who completed the intensive in 2018 and Greta van den Brink who was a graduate of the One-Year Program in 2019.

LEAD ROLE FOR MELISSA Melissa Uren (Year 12) has been cast in a professional production of a new dark comedy play called Sunrise with the Seed Theatre company. Sunrise is about the emotional strife young adults face and the hope we can find in one another. It is centred around four young adults meeting in a support group to talk about emotional troubles. It is an observation about how our generation talks about our issues and how we can find some

DIO TODAY

comfort in confiding in one another – finding hope even if we don’t currently have a solution. Melissa plays one of the lead roles – Lee, an empathetic 14-year-old who struggles with prioritising herself over others. Melissa is the youngest of the cast of six and was selected from a pool of 50 applicants, mainly university students. The play will be on at the Pitt Street Theatre from 30 August to 12 September.

LIVING Cowie House, winner of hymn

Mitchelson House, winner of dance

Roberton, overall winning House

HOUSE MUSIC 2020 I t was very obvious that lockdown did not dampen the spirits for any of the House leaders this year – our annual House Music and Dance competition, held on Friday 31 July, was pumping. The Sports Centre once again came alive with sound, movement and an explosion of colour for this year’s fest of the best. The theme was ‘Uplifting Anthems’ and there was no doubt prefects and their teams rose to the challenge with some brilliant selections. The ‘own choice’ selection included some classic songs from Mamma Mia, Moana and Hairspray, to name a few, and these were judged along with the House hymns. The tradition has now become to award winners in each of the categories – dance, song, hymn and then the over-all placements are read

out by Ms McRae – to rising tension during the countdown to number one.

Adjudicators Anitra Hayday and Josh Clark both commented on the extremely high standard and how difficult it was choosing a winner. There were only fractions of a point between the final scores and the judges found it difficult to believe that these routines are put together in one day, so polished were the final performances. After much deliberation, the judges gave their verdict. Winner of Own Choice Roberton, How Far I’ll Go from Moana Winner of Hymn Cowie, Guide me, O my great Redeemer Winner of Dance Mitchelson, Build Me up Buttercup

Roberton House, winner of ‘own choice’ song

FINAL PLACINGS

1st Roberton 2nd Mitchelson 3rd Cochrane 4th Eliza Edwards Followed by (in no particular order), Selwyn, Cowie, Mary Pulling and Neligan.

DIO TODAY

BIRTHDAY CONCERT T

he Birthday Concert theme for 2020, Dio on Demand, hilariously incorporated all things uniquely ‘Dio’ into our favourite TV shows, movies and streaming services. Birthday Concert prefect for 2020 Stella Murray, along with her deputies Holly Meyers and Nicole Lockie, brought together a coherent and hilarious take on all the quirks of being a ‘Dio girl’.

From the X-Factor, Spill your guts and fill your guts and Teacher Tik-Toks – highlighting all the secret talents our teachers possess – to Dora the Explorer, WatchMojo and The Committee giving a hilarious insight into the secret life of a student at Dio. Our incredible four hosts brought together our story line in an epic sleepover, continuing the 50

DIO TODAY

“A spontaneous effort full of surprises and of respectful impertinence” Miss Edwards, former Headmistress, commenting on the Birthday entertainment in 1950

Dio tradition of ‘Boy’s Club’. The show was topped off with some incredible choreography and the most epic songs of the last decade. Thank you so much to Stella and her team for organising a concert that set the benchmark for the decade.

LIVING DIO TODAY

JUNIOR SCHOOL @HOME SPORTS OPTIONS DURING LOCKDOWN Adaptability, positivity and resilience were all clearly evident when our juniors went into @Home lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are so proud of the way our girls responded to being @Home, finding new ways to learn, move and keep fit and healthy.

@HOME FITNESS EVERY DAY Our resourceful PE teacher, Mrs Deb Watson, delivered @Home fitness every morning for our junior girls, providing a range of sessions including Tabata, Jump Jam, Qi Gong, running, dance and more. Her daily sessions were uplifting and inspirational for both our girls and staff.

@HOME DIO20 JUNIOR FITNESS PROGRAMME Our very own DIO Gym Manager and Personal Trainer, Bella Bloomfield, put together a special Fitness Workout Video, DIO20, for our Years 5 and 6 girls. She also developed a fun Alphabet Fitness Game for our Junior Years 3 to 6 girls. There was no shortage of options for our girls to engage in and keep moving!

Mrs Deb Watson, PE teacher, delivering a morning fitness session during lockdown.

Above: Dio senior netballer Lauren Batchelor provided some @Home video sessions for our junior netballers.

@HOME SPORTS – SKILLS-BASED SESSIONS Although our winter sports programme was on hold during lockdown, we managed to find new ways to offer skills-based @Home sessions for our girls. These included @Home netball, @Home hockey, @Home flippa ball (land-based), @Home play ball and @Home dance sessions. We loved how enthusiastic the girls were and enjoyed the videos and photos they shared with us. 52

DIO TODAY

Hollie Lawson (Year 6) getting into her @Home Hockey session in the garage.

Isabella Coleman (Year 6) doing her @Home netball session in the driveway.

After many weeks of isolation, our girls were truly elated to be back at School and engaging in their favourite sports again. We were able to manage a staggered return to Sports @School, starting with Years 5 and 6 futsal; netball and hockey trials and team trainings; and later we included the Years 3 and 4 girls in these codes. The Auckland Hockey League commenced on Saturday 20 June and our junior Years 3-6 teams were out in force, full of excitement and enthusiasm. Trainings got underway on Tuesdays after school. Our head hockey coach, Will Stables, ex U-21 Wellington men’s hockey captain, was delighted to support our coaches and start delivering our junior hockey development curriculum.

While the Auckland Netball Junior League did not recommence until the beginning of Term 3, we decided to run our very own DIO Community Netball here at the Junior School for our Years 5 and 6 girls. With almost 60 netballers, there was certainly the critical mass to run our own internal programme. Our Years 3 and 4 girls were very lucky, they enjoyed lunchtime netball sessions with our head Junior netball coach, super star and ex-Silver Fern, Courtney Tairi. We were able to field 4 Years 3-6 teams in Term 2 in the Auckland Futsal League as games recommenced on Saturdays. Although our flippa ball and mini polo girls couldn’t train in our pool as it was closed for repairs in Term 2, they still managed to compete in the Epsom Flippa Ball League, which recommenced on Sundays.

LIVING

S C R H O I O N O U J ORT RETUR L N C K O P L D OW S S POSTN

Main image: Year 6 Hockey Trials in Term 2 after lockdown. There really was gold at the bottom of this rainbow. Above: Dani Gray, Northern Mystics, coaching some of our Year 6 netballers.

In retrospect, during the lockdown our girls truly missed the fun and social interaction that sport offers. When the junior sports programme started up again in Term 2, there was a mixture of relief, gratitude and celebration. It was truly joyous to see our girls, happy and excited, out on the turf and courts again. DIO TODAY

SPORT

TERM 1 TEAM ACHIEVEMENTS 54

DIO TODAY

LIVING

CRICKET 1A gets gold

WATER POLO Premier gold

Senior A gold

The Diocesan water polo season was cut short by the COVID-19 situation this year. Luckily, before the lockdown the Auckland round robin games had been completed, with Diocesan coming out on top. This is the third consecutive title for the Dio team – and they did it in emphatic fashion. The team scored 101 goals and conceded only 25 and went unbeaten in seven games. The girls in the team were: Lara Johns, Laura Whitley, Morgan McDowall, Maddy Gault, Abby Allison, Olivia Clark, Sophie Gardiner, Lauren Batchelor, Sophie Shorter Robinson, Isabella Broadmore, Isabelle Jackson and Millie Quin (pictured left).

The Senior A Water Polo followed the Premier team’s example and came away with a similar title in the Senior A grade. The girls outscored their opponents 120 – 20 and went unbeaten for the season. The season was cut short with one game to go, but Dio had already secured the title due to being four points ahead. The Senior A team was: Hannah Bell, Neve Cobham, Isabella Dalton, Georgia Daly, Vittoria Di Pietro Selwyn, Isobella Francis, Billie Frecker Netten, Lilly Freeman, Emma Gilleece, Kasey McDowall, Grace Mellsop, Lucia Partigliani and Jenna Veal (pictured above).

Coming off relegation the previous year, the Dio team overwhelmed the Cricket 1A competition, remaining undefeated across the whole season. Every game had its highlights – Sophie Hughes with a five-wicket bag against Mt Roskill Grammar; Sophie also scored 50 off 46 balls in another game against Westlake Girls; Arunika Mather-Saini scored 64 not out off 45 balls against Epsom Girls’ Grammar. Every game was either won by 50 runs or by six overs. Only a few games were impacted by a shortened season, but it was clear that Dio was streets ahead of the 1A competition. We are looking forward to being competitive back in the Premier competition next year. Grateful thanks to esteemed coach Roy Goodyear, and to our own Bryan Haggitt for his enthusiastic stewardship of the 1st XI, as team manager and scorer. Well done to Gabby de Latour as team and code captain, and for her management of the team. Congratulations to the members of the 1st XI Cricket team on their wonderful success: Amelia Brown, Gabby de Latour, Tessa Dyzell, Eve Finlayson, Katie Hardie, Sophia Hardie, Sophie Hughes, Madeleine Jorgenson, Sienna Kirk, Arunika Mather-Saini, Lucy Nevill, Harriet Smith and Ana Wijffels (pictured below).

DIO TODAY

ROWING Dio finished equal top girls’ school at the North Island Secondary Schools’ Rowing Championships with our best NISS medal tally in 19 years! The hard work and dedication of every single girl on our team has gone towards creating the exceptional culture that these results stem from. Our girls won four gold, two silver and two bronze medals. These are our strongest NISS results since 2001 when Dio won all five eights: U-15, U-16, U-17, U-19 and novice. In total, 28 girls and eight crews won medals from 12 A finals, and crews in every age group qualified for A finals. These are incredible results from a team of 53 girls. On points we finished fourth equal out of all 99 competing schools, including boys’ and co-ed schools with far larger teams. Dio was the only school to win a medal this year in all the U-18 girls’ sweep events – traditionally considered the premier events of the regatta. Support from parents, friends, and the wider School community has been amazing and we can’t thank you enough 56

DIO TODAY

for being there for our girls! You have all been a huge part of our success.

Gold •U -18 Four Charlie Barclay, Ella Ross, Holly Schiele, Isabella Carter and Leila Bonetti (coxswain) •U -18 Novice Eight Sofia Phillimore, Imogen Foley, Katie Ryan, Sara MacGillivray, Nina Fisher, Lucy Irwin, Rosie Wiseman, Charli Scragg and Sophie Ryan (coxswain) •U -18 Novice Quad Imogen Foley, Katie Ryan, Isobel Fletcher, Sara MacGillivray and Sophie Ryan (coxswain) • U -18 Novice Double Katie Ryan, Imogen Foley

Silver •U -18 Pair Isabella Carter, Holly Schiele • U - 16 Eight Clementine Dryden, Serena Bhindi, Natalie Kirke, Lucy Pettit, Natalie Spillane, Sara MacGillivray, Jasmine Ireland, Poppy Pett and Leila Bonetti (coxswain)

Bronze •U -18 Eight Charlie Barclay, Serena Bhindi, Holly Schiele, Ella Ross, Jasmine Ireland, Isabella Carter, Natalie Kirke, Gretta Wiseman and Lauren Williams (coxswain) •U -15 Eight Marina Farac, Charli Scragg, Sofia Phillimore, Lucy Irwin, Scarlett Snelling, Nina Fisher, Rosie Wiseman, Georgia Haskell and Sophie Coombes (coxswain)

TRIATHLON Georgia Hair competed in the Auckland Secondary Schools’ Triathlon Championships back in March just before lockdown and finished in second place in the senior age category. Aimee Crosbie (swim), Kate Shanley (bike) and Lauren Williams (run) combined to take out the bronze medal in the senior team race.

LIVING

DRAGON BOATING The Diocesan dragon boating teams competed at the Auckland Regatta on Sunday 15 March. This was the first year we had two crews and the girls all did a fantastic job out on the water. Our Dio Blue team came away with three silvers in the 200m, 500m and 2km events. A special mention goes to Mimi Bond, Alex French, Jenna Johnston and Milly Johnston who made the Junior A Auckland rep team! The Dio Blue team members are: Alexandra French, Amelia Griffiths, Ava Tinkler, Cassie Gray, Charlotte Lobb, Ella Jacobson, Emma Blackwood, Hannah Mercer, Heidi van der Peet, Helen Dunshea, Isobelle Brosnahan, Jaime Shorter, Jemima Forsythe, Jenna Johnson, Kellie Hageman, Kim van den Hurk, Lily Bond, Mia Cobham, Milly Johnston, Mimi Bond and Olivia Wrapson.

DIO TODAY

TERM 2 CHALLENGES Term 2 presented a very different scenario for sport at Dio. Lockdown meant that all sport across the nation, from grass roots to national and international levels was put on hold; some competitions postponed or modified, others cancelled for 2020.

io provided a number of home programmes to keep the girls, their parents and the staff active during lockdown. Four times a week Fitness Centre Manager Bella provided 45-minute workout videos that ranged from core to all over body workouts. These were very well received by our community and will be used in the future as part of the Fitness Centre programmes. The Sports Department also offered some sport-specific programmes for water polo and hockey. Diocesan’s Water Polo Manager Gabby Oloapu set up resources for the girls to use during lockdown. There were even some home pool sessions for the girls to train remotely with their peers. One of our favourite moments was when Lucy and Emma Gilleece’s sausage dog decided to join in their training! The girls were also sent quizzes including general knowledge and iconic ‘what happened next?’ videos. They had a daily schedule to follow that incorporated land-based training, including ball-handling skills and Zoom fitness sessions three times per week where they could link up with their teammates. Gabby also conducted some tactical sessions with various teams to get them ready to get back into the pool. It was a great way to stay connected. Hockey Manager Jason Butcher engaged with the hockey community in a number of ways throughout lockdown. There were online live development sessions (run through Zoom) including pilates with ex Kookaburra Nick Budgeon, skill development and goalkeeper sessions, as well as culture

DIO TODAY

workshops. Jason also ran some fun activities with the girls including weekly quiz competitions with prizes and technique feedback using sports software Hudl. Just in case the girls needed more to occupy themselves, a number of other resources were distributed, including running conditioning home programmes, goalkeeper and field player simulated running, strength and skill development using a video resource, a goalkeeper development programme, and stick handling video tutorial resources.

LIVING Dio Day Out Jazz Band

Hockey team Football team

Netball team

P&F SHIELD GAMES In 2020 the strong competitive sporting rivalry continued between Diocesan and St Cuthbert’s College. It is awesome to see the two schools pushing each other to showcase women’s sport in its most positive environment. Before lockdown, the Dio water polo team competed for the Parents and Friends’ Trophy, the third year that this competition has been played. Sophie Shorter-Robinson, Morgan McDowall and Lauren Batchelor (on her premier debut) found the net with the team pulling away convincingly in the second half, winning the game 7-3. Football played the first P&F cup game for this code with the Diocesan girls coming out on top in a closefought 1-0 victory. Imogen Foley

scored a screamer from way out to make the difference. The hockey and netball teams played their fixtures on the same day with incredible support during the ‘Dio Day Out’. Head Prefects Maddy Gault and Francesca Masfen engaged the whole School community and organised a great crowd of spectators. The Sports Council provided snacks and Diocesan performing arts provided entertainment. The newly formed Clyde Street Jazz Band delighted the home crowd before the hockey hit off and the Hip Hop crew provided a great break from a frantic netball game at half time. It was truly a celebration of what has been a very different Term 2. St Cuthbert’s showed their strong hockey tradition, taking home the shield in a

2-0 game. The Diocesan girls showed amazing grit, determination and improvement throughout the game and we are looking forward to seeing them play during the rest of this season. The netball game started at a frenetic pace, with both teams guilty of errors. The Dio Premiers led in the first quarter by two goals, settled early and went to a healthy halftime lead. They then took the game by the horns and won the third quarter by five goals. Not to be outdone, St Cuthbert’s had a late surge in the fourth quarter, but the Premiers kept their lead, taking out the game 27-16. A superb shooting game by Clementine Dryden and determined defensive pressure by Maddy Frear helped the Premiers reclaim the shield for 2020. DIO TODAY

NEW ZE REPRES FOR DIO

CHRIS HAYWARD INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT

With the cancellation of most summer national competitions due to COVID-19, New Zealand Water Polo put together the Chris Hayward Invitational Tournament for New Zealand’s top secondary school teams. We were fortunate to enter both our Premier and Senior A teams.

The lead up to this tournament was quite different for our athletes with many coming out of lockdown with no water training, and with our pool being closed it made things all the more difficult. Both teams travelled all over Auckland to be able to train in the water and get up to competition standard. Senior A played extremely well throughout the tournament with girls from Years 9-11 participating. They came out with one win, a

DIO TODAY

draw and two losses against other schools’ top teams in pool play. They earned seventh place in their final game against St Cuthbert’s Senior A – an incredible result for such a young team. After only a week of training, the Premier team (defending national champions), was in great form going into the tournament. With New Zealand’s greatest talent Morgan McDowall leading the team, along with Olivia Clark, they dominated play throughout the whole tournament, playing some fantastic water polo and won the gold medal in a game against Mount Maungnui with a score of 13-1. Congratulations to all the girls, coaches and managers on a successful tournament.

ATHLETES

We congratulate the following girls for their achievements in gaining New Zealand representative status and wish them luck in the future as they pursue their sporting goals. Sarah Young Gymnastics Sarah was selected to represent New Zealand at the 2020 Australian Gymnastics Championships. The trials for this were back in February before COVID-19 unfortunately meant the tour was cancelled.

Morgan McDowall Water polo Morgan McDowall was selected in the New Zealand Women’s Water Polo team due to play in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Trieste, Italy from 17-24 May. This tournament was postponed and the team is now awaiting confirmation that it will go ahead in January 2021. This would have been Morgan’s fourth international tournament with the New Zealand women. She has been working hard focusing on playing with our Dio Premier team.

Prudence Fowler Cycling Prudence was named in a 13-strong team to contest the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships that were to be staged in Cairo, Egypt from 16-21 August. It would have been the first time the championship was staged in the Middle East and held in the new velodrome in Cairo. Prudence was part of the endurance team on the track.

Dio’s international reps from left to right: Sarah Young, Lena Jacob, Alice Rabbitts, Prudence Fowler and Sienna French. Absent from photo Morgan McDowall and Georgia Hair.

LIVING

ALAND ENTATION

A number of Dio’s top athletes gained selection to represent New Zealand in different sport codes this year, but disappointingly, due to the rampant spread of COVID-19 around the globe, all international competition has taken a hit with most fixtures cancelled or put on hold.

of difficulty of 2.45, smashing her previous personal best. Alice was meant to travel to Arizona in July to represent New Zealand.

Sienna French Trampolining Sienna was selected to represent New Zealand at the Pacific Rim Championships in Australia. This is a biennial event that gathers the best of artistic, rhythmic and trampoline gymnasts from the Pacific nations. Unfortunately, like so many others, the event has been cancelled this year.

Georgia Hair Triathlon Before the school holidays Georgia received the great news from TRI New Zealand that she had been selected as part of the Triathlon New Zealand team to compete at the World Championships ITU Grand Final in Edmonton, Canada, in August this year. Georgia is now working towards the winter cycling season.

Lena Jacob Fencing

Alice Rabbits

Lena qualified for the Asian Junior Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, which have been tentatively delayed to later in the year. She also qualified for the World Junior Championships in Salt Lake City (USA), which have also been tentatively delayed to later in the year. Unfortunately, both events are likely to be cancelled.

Aerobic gymnastics Alice qualified into the senior international stream for New Zealand, which is an 18+ category. To do this she needed to score a 17.8 with a 2.3 degree of difficulty, which she achieved by scoring an 18.5 with a degree

Special mention Holly Schiele and Isabella Carter were selected to trial for the New Zealand junior rowing programme. Sadly, the trial and World Championships have been cancelled for 2020. DIO TODAY

Pictured at the opening of the Norfolk pine playground on 22 June, are the P&F Executive team, from left to right, Tina Tsui, Robin Bell, Lisa Manks and Jacinta Chow.

Reconnecting in 2020 Parents and Friends is taking time to focus on reaching out to the Dio community in 2020.

t is difficult to reflect upon the past term, with the lockdown and pandemic, knowing that we are in a very different position from other nations at this time. Maintaining global awareness and compassion is at the forefront of many minds, adults and children alike. We also sympathise with the strife and stress felt nationally and locally. Nonetheless, we must also remember to appreciate and share positive outcomes and small successes, both to learn from and to keep our mental well-being healthy.

DIO TODAY

Sharing experiences of lockdown learning has brought about many funny and endearing stories within the parent base of Dio, and an even greater gratitude for our teachers. For many, this intense time spent with family was a vast change from a normal week. Early morning drop-offs, long days on school campus and late-night sports or arts activities were all exchanged for lingering breakfast conversations, long walks and a lot of baking. Good, bad or ugly, we all spent time with our family. Alas, in turn, the speed with which our

busy lives has returned has many doing a double-take, wondering when the 20kg bag of flour will in fact be finished, while the walking shoes gather dust. So we ask ourselves, how do we hold onto those precious moments, while still moving fast forward? Within P&F, we have adapted our focus for 2020, in part due to circumstances and in part due to a desire to look inward. As events have had to be postponed, cancelled or limited in size, our plan for the remainder of the year

has been adapted. As a committee, we have decided to use this year to focus, in particular, on friend-raising rather than fund-raising, and the development of the Dio community. We were incredibly pleased to be able to re-open the Dio Café in Term 2 as soon as the strict lockdown was lifted. P&F was especially happy to be able to bring many student volunteers into the café immediately upon opening, plus parent volunteers later in the term. With the understandable restrictions in place for health and safety purposes, the café staff worked hard to ensure the utmost adherence to them. At the same time, we recognised the importance of providing the student body with a warm and welcoming centre to the School, so we were thrilled to have many friendly faces (both students and parents) serving breakfast, morning tea and lunch with smiles and plenty of laughter. We were also thrilled to join in the opening of the new and very spacious Norfolk Pine playgrounds, donating our second pledge of $100,000 to the

LIVING

“With our focus shifted now to friend-raising, our Committee is working on ways to bring the Dio community together. P&F will look to help maintain and build on those chances for parents, students and staff to spend time together under the School umbrella.”

school in June. The various pockets of play and recreation spaces that have been created are quite amazing. To stand at the woodlands play area and look across this large development makes one realise just how much more outdoor space has been given back to the students. Our special thanks go to past committee member Melissa Brady. Melissa spent years tending to the Shrewsbury gardens and spearheaded the redesign of our own food technology gardens. She has since worked within the School, giving beautiful and caring oversight to the development of the Norfolk Pine playgrounds. We look forward to seeing many students enjoying, sharing and interacting on and with these new grounds. With our focus shifted now to friendraising, our committee is working on ways to bring the Dio community together. As security and health and safety concerns give cause for parents to step further away from the Dio campus, we want to ensure that parent contact is not lost altogether. From the

youngest age, our children learn from how we treat and interact with others, and this learning does not stop in the teen years! Therefore P&F will look to help maintain and build on those chances for parents, students and staff to spend time together under the School umbrella. We look also to re-connect with our past committee members, inviting people back to celebrate the successes of the School and to see the amazing growth and development of the School grounds and wonderful student body. Furthermore, we hope to work closely with other school associations, including Dio Arts, Dio Sport and the Old Girls, to help strengthen the Dio community and continue to foster an environment of service and giving back. In today’s world, we see more than ever the need to demonstrate to our daughters the importance of the School motto Ut Servimus and being thankful for having the ability to give back in any way possible.

DIO TODAY

DI Stella Murray Future Gastrophysicist

BE MORE THAN YOU EVER IMAGINED

Proudly supporting DIOCESAN COMMUNITY

OPEN DAY 15 October, 2020 9am - 11am Register at www.diocesan.school.nz/open-day

L I F E LON G F R IE N DS

From the OGL president Recently, there was a news item about the resumption of filming on the UK set of Coronation Street. A producer of the show explained that, while all their stories will involve people physical distancing, they would continue with the same storylines because they didn’t think viewers needed to be exposed to more stories “banging on about coronavirus”. What’s good enough for Coronation Street is good enough for the Lifelong Friends pages. However, without some of the League’s usual events to report back on, we thought about other stories we could share with our alumnae. It occurred to me that there are many within our thousands of members who might be unaware of the other work the Old Girls’ League currently does and wants to do more of in the future. In addition to profiling the work and achievements of some interesting Old Girls, this issue we’ve taken the opportunity to outline some of the contributions and aspirations of the League. As I have mentioned before, League member Penny Tucker has been working tirelessly alongside the School to help achieve the League’s goal of mobilising our vast resource of Old Girls’ experience, compassion and energy, for the benefit of the whole Old Girls’ community. Please read Penny’s article about this work and how easy it is for any Old Girl to offer to help. I have also been doing a stocktake of the League’s award programme, which is particularly relevant in the current Covid-hit economic environment. I came across a paper that highlights the links

“We need more people to help and to be involved at every level of the Dio Old Girls’ League … don’t be put off if you think you are too young or too old to help.” between the various League awards, scholarships and bursaries, and the principles behind the League. I found it very interesting and have tried to explain it further in the following pages.

DIOCESAN OLD GIRLS’ LEAGUE COMMITTEE CONTACT DETAILS Email oldgirls@diocesan.school.nz for all enquiries. PRESIDENT Jenny Spillane (Orsborn) M. 027 603 6990

The activities of the League are broad and fulfilling and we have a very small, industrious and incredibly warm committee that works hard to make them successful. But, to be honest, we need more people to help and to be involved at every level. Please don’t be put off if you think you are too young or too old, or if you don’t have a daughter at the School. All that’s important is that we share the same respect for the Old Girls’ community and the work of the League to support that community. If you are interested in being involved with the Old Girls’ League – in any capacity – please get in touch with me and we can discuss it further (spillanej01@gmail.com or 027 603 6990).

VICE PRESIDENT Melanie Eady (Perkins) E. melanieeady@me.com TREASURER Felicity Buche (Olson) P. 09 521 8387 SECRETARY Tania Fairgray (Railley) P. 09 529 1736 FELLOWSHIP SECRETARY Emma Cleary (Dillon) P. 09 522 9564 COMMITTEE Sarah Couillault (Willis) M. 021 489 102 Annabel French (Smaill) P. 09 575 1175 Penny Tucker (Macdonald) E. pennydtucker@gmail.com Kimberly Sumner (Wragge) E. kimberlysumner@happinessblindspot.com Kirsty Eady (McDonald) P. 09 522 2652 Dio Today Editor, League pages Deirdre Coleman E. d.g@slingshot.co.nz

Ut Serviamus. Jenny Spillane, Old Girls’ League President

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING & FOUNDERS’ DAY Notice is given that the 109th Annual General Meeting/ Conference of the Auckland Diocesan School Old Girls’ League (Inc) will be held on Saturday 7 November at 3.15pm in the School Hall in the grounds of Diocesan School for Girls, Clyde Street, Epsom, Auckland.

Diocesan School Old Girls’ League PO Box 28 382, Remuera, Auckland 1541

It will be followed by the Founders’ Day Service, led by Reverend Sandy Robertson, at 4pm in the Chapel of our Glorified Lord. After the AGM and Chapel service, there will be a cocktail function at 5pm in the newly completed Diocesan Arts Centre auditorium.

Tania Fairgray (Railley), Secretary PO Box 28-382, Remuera, Auckland 1541

DIO TODAY

The Old Girls’ League

AWARDS PROGRAMME Every year the Diocesan Old Girls’ League presents a number of scholarships and awards to both current and past Dio students. League President, Jenny Spillane, explains what is on offer.

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

ords like scholarship, bursary and award usually denote success, achievement and recognition. But when you consider the breadth of awards offered through the Diocesan Old Girls’ League awards programme, it’s clear that they are an acknowledgement of so much more. The bursaries, scholarships and other awards that the League provides recognise the history and values of the League and the Old Girls’ community, as well as the importance of the wider Diocesan family. Dio Today readers will be familiar with many of these awards, as the recipients are often profiled in these pages. The Alumna Merita Award annually recognises one or more Dio Old Girls who have made exceptional contributions in their chosen fields and who, throughout their careers, have exhibited the qualities inherent in our School motto, Ut Serviamus. However, Alumna Merita and the Old Girls’ League’s support for Women2Watch, are currently the only awards in the programme presented to Diocesan alumnae. All the other awards, scholarships and bursaries recognise the contribution, potential and importance of current Dio girls. The Mary Pulling Prizes and the Eliza Edwards Memorial Awards sit at the heart of the League’s awards programme. Named after Dio’s inspirational founding headmistress, Mary Pulling, and the exceptional Miss Edwards who brought the School through the difficult days of the Great Depression and the Second World War, these prizes recognise the history, tradition and values of Diocesan and the Old Girls’ League. There are now six Mary Pulling prizes awarded to girls at the end of Years 7 to 12. The recipients are students who show potential and an outstanding contribution to the School in a wide range of areas. Of all the Old Girls’ League prizes, the Eliza Edwards Memorial Award is probably the most well known amongst

Alumna Merita award

Dio students. Presented each year by the League President as the ‘grand finale’ at Senior Prize Giving, the Eliza Edwards Memorial Award is given to a school leaver who, throughout her time at Dio, has contributed to a wide range of activities, shown high personal standards, and exhibited the qualities inherent in the foundation of the School. In recent times, the Old Girls’ League has also presented a Junior School Eliza Edwards Award to a girl finishing Year 6 who, like the senior recipient, has exemplified the high personal standards expected by the award’s namesake, Miss Edwards. In further recognition of how important the School’s history and tradition is in the Old Girls’ League awards programme, the other prizes presented at prize giving are in the name of former headmistress Ethel Sandford. Ms Sandford was known as much for her musical abilities as her energy in developing the School in the early days. The Ethel Sandford Prizes are awarded to two students (one each in the Senior and Junior High schools) for their musical ability and contribution to music at Diocesan. Few presidents of the Old Girls’ League would pass up the chance to participate in the interviews for the Spirit of New Zealand Trust berth scholarships. For the girls who are interviewed there is no talk of academic, sporting or performing arts success. Instead, the chance to participate in the 10-day

Women2Watch award

Spirit of Adventure voyage with the help of a 50% scholarship from the Old Girls’ League, is all about fulfilling their potential and seeking their personal best. Each year, the League supports five girls to join a voyage, and the only thing more heart-warming than being involved in the interviews is hearing their stories and reading their notes of thanks when they return. The League’s largest bursary centres on family, in particular the ‘Dio family’. It’s a factor that is central to so many parents’ decisions to entrust Dio with their daughters’ education. The Old Girls’ League Hardship Bursaries pay 50% of the annual tuition costs for up to three years, for each bursary recipient. The purpose of the bursary is to enable daughters and granddaughters of Old Girls to have a Dio education, when financial hardship might otherwise prevent them from doing so. Bursary applications are invited both from families entering the School, as well as those already at Dio who may have experienced a change in financial circumstances. Whether by design or good fortune, the Old Girls’ League awards programme promotes a special balance of history and tradition, achievement and recognition, promoting personal best, family and our Ut Serviamus values. Guardianship of the programme is a privilege that the Diocesan Old Girls’ League Committee takes very seriously. Respect for these tenets will always be at the core of that responsibility. DIO TODAY

AE N

E WS

ALU

MORE WELL-DESERVED

RECOGNITION FOR

DR TESSA DUDER In the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours list, author Dr Tessa Duder CNZM, OBE (Staveley, 1958) was named a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to literature. This is not her first honour. In 1994, Tessa was awarded an OBE, in 2007 she received an Artists to Antarctica

Fellowship, and in 2009 she was given a University of Waikato honorary doctorate. Of her CNZM, Tessa is modest. “I know it’s cliché, but I’m grateful to all those people who will also enjoy this as a reflection on their work.” Tessa attended Diocesan for her entire schooling, except for one year when she travelled by ship with her parents to England at the age of five, returning

to Auckland in 1947. She was deputy head prefect and represented Dio in swimming and hockey. “I remember my 11 years at Dio as happy, busy and very supportive of my swimming activities,” she says. “I’ll always be grateful that the teaching at that time was strongest in the humanities. My best subjects of English, history, languages, music, choir and drama laid the groundwork for the careers and passions I later chose to follow.” Since leaving school, Tessa hasn’t stood still. Her early achievements began in the pool. She swam competitively as a teenager, winning a raft of national swimming titles and breaking records in both butterfly and medley in the mid to late 1950s. At the Cardiff Empire Games in 1958, she took home silver in the 110 yards butterfly and a fourth place with the New Zealand women’s medley relay team. The following year, Tessa was named New Zealand’s first Swimmer of the Year. Her journalism career began at the Auckland Star. She went on to work at the Daily Express in London in the mid ’60s, and then she and her husband, John, lived in Pakistan for five years with their young family. In 1977, after a brief career as a pianist with a light music trio, and with her youngest daughter now at school, Tessa began writing fiction. Her first novel, Night Race to Kawau, was published in both New Zealand and the UK in 1982. Tessa has gone on to write around 45 books. Among the most celebrated are her Alex novels about a teenage Olympic swimming hopeful. This series of four books has earned Tessa three New Zealand Children’s Book of the Year awards and three Esther Glen medals. Alex is published in five languages and has been made into a feature film. The paperback version of the book was, for a time, Penguin New Zealand’s best-selling work of fiction.

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

Sadie (right) and her sister, Zita, at the 2019 Dio Graduation Ball.

Tessa also won the New Zealand Post Senior Fiction Award for her 1999 book The Tiggie Tompson Show. But her oeuvre extends well beyond fiction – she’s written educational readers, biographies and non-fiction books for children and adults on subjects as varied as the history of the first Olympics, the restoration of a stolen James Tissot painting, and James Cook’s charting of New Zealand. In 2001 Tessa spent time in Livorno, the Tuscany home of her Italian greatgrandparents. From that visit came a family history and travel book called In Search of Elisa Marchetti — a writer’s search for her Italian roots. But writing isn’t the only string to Tessa’s bow; she’s also edited several anthologies, written a full-length play about Joan of Arc (The Warrior Virgin) and had roles in numerous plays. She’s even appeared on 11 episodes of Shortland Street. As a member of the drama quartet Metaphor, she presented performances of self-devised plays and programmes of ‘literary cabaret’ at major arts festivals around the country. Mentoring, inspiring and teaching are Tessa’s most generous gifts to younger generations. She has taught creative writing through the University of Auckland and at summer schools and seminars around the country. Over more than three decades, Tessa has visited hundreds of classrooms around New Zealand, spoken to teachers, librarians and parents, as well as at international conferences, and judged book and short story competitions. She is a past president of the NZ Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc), a current Trustee of the Storylines Children’s Literature Trust of New Zealand, and a former trustee and deputy chair of the Spirit of Adventure Trust. Not keen to rest on her laurels just yet, Tessa is currently completing her latest work, a young adult novel set in early Auckland.

ONE TO WATCH Sadie Sumich, who graduated from Dio in 2019, moved to London at the start of this year to audition for some of the world’s top drama schools. After a very intense process, Sadie was delighted to accept one of only 20 places at the prestigious Royal Birmingham Conservatoire to study acting on the BA (Hons) Acting course. Auditions take place in London and North America to ensure that the standard of students is the highest. Sadie will take up her place in September. She was also offered an International Scholarship award to Manchester University Theatre Department. Sarah Spicer, Head of Drama, taught Sadie and says she’s definitely one to watch. “On our international drama trip last year, Sadie was lead role in the play The Sad Club, which was part of the National Theatre London International programme,” says Sarah. “She was also a co-director of

the internationally acclaimed Dio production that was part of the Youth Festival in Scotland. “Sadie’s talent and passion have developed here at Diocesan. I’m sure she’ll return to perform in our own Performing Arts Centre as an inspiration for our students.” In 2019, Sadie received the Sandy O’Brien Cup for Excellence in Drama Performance at the Senior Arts Awards. She also won the Best Play award at the regional One Act play festival with the play Hang. At the national final in Wellington, she was singled out for her natural and mature acting style.

DIO TODAY

AE N

E WS

ALU

BACK ON CALL IN LONDON Professor Janice Rymer (Dio Head Prefect, 1975) is living in London in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, doing her bit to help out the NHS. Janice gained her MBCHB from the University of Auckland in 1981. She chose to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology after a recommendation from a colleague, and subsequently passed her Part 1 MRCOG (the international gold standard qualification for obstetrics and gynaecology) before moving to England in 1987. After a year in High Wycombe, she settled in London where she’s lived for the past three decades. In 1994, after gaining her MD thesis, Janice joined the staff at Guy’s Hospital as a senior lecturer/clinical academic. She was made fellow of the RCOG (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) in 2005 and was RCOG vice president for the past three years. As Dean of Student Affairs and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at King’s College London, Janice spends roughly a day a week teaching and supervising students at the medical school. It’s one of the top 25 ranked universities in the world and among the oldest in England. In addition to running her own private gynaecology practice, she’s also a consultant gynaecologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. “My clinical interests are menopause and HRT, female genital mutilation, and minimally invasive surgery, so I do all the really difficult endometriosis surgery in conjunction with a colorectal and urology colleague.” Despite not having been on call for 10 years, when COVID-19 hit, Janice offered to help out at Guy’s and St 70

DIO TODAY

masks used in the war. As well as being uncomfortable, the masks make it hard to hear so it’s difficult to communicate with each other.” With no one allowed onsite at King’s College, all teaching is being done online. Janice and her colleagues hope to resume clinical placements in September.

“A lot of the workforce were self-isolating or sick with COVID, so there were significant staff shortages. I did gynaecology on call, so I wasn’t looking after COVID patients. Quite a few of my colleagues got COVID, but thankfully no one I know died.” Thomas’ – which cared for Prime Minister Boris Johnson – so that other medical professionals could be deployed to intensive care wards. “A lot of the workforce were selfisolating or sick with COVID, so there were significant staff shortages,” she says. “I did gynaecology on call, so I wasn’t looking after COVID patients. Quite a few of my colleagues got COVID, but thankfully no one I know died.” It’s been a stressful time for health professionals, she says, especially with the changing guidelines around PPE. “There’s been a lot of controversy about PPE not being available but at Guy’s and St Thomas’ this didn’t seem to be a problem. We were lucky. In the operating theatre, we looked quite scary as the PPE we wear resembles gas

“I’m doing two days a week working virtually and the other three days I’m in the hospital doing virtual clinics, operating or seeing patients.” England has had a high rate of COVID-19 cases and a worrying death toll, but Janice says the silver lining has been the amazing camaraderie amongst the NHS staff. “What’s really weird is seeing London deserted. When the lockdown first began, it was so eerie walking to work with virtually no one in sight and all the tube stations, shops and restaurants closed. But the lack of tourists has made the jog along the Thames from Tower Bridge to Westminster much easier.” With the UK gradually opening up in July, Janice is very nervous about a second wave and says finding a vaccine is imperative. “People have been afraid to come into hospital so I suspect there will be delayed cancer diagnoses, and the cervical and breast cancer screening programmes have been paused, which is concerning.” Before coronavirus changed our world completely, Janice would return to New Zealand two or three times a year, always catching up with her four closest Dio friends and spending two weeks over summer at Lang’s Beach with her sister. Those plans may be on hold for a while. Meanwhile, Janice is set to take on a challenging new role as the National Specialty Advisor for Gynaecology for NHS England.

LIFELONG FRIENDS

Building valuable networks Penny Tucker on the Old Girls’ League Committee is working with the Diocesan Careers Department to help current students and recent graduates tap into the experience and expertise of our Old Girls.

hen a new Dio girl walks through the school gates, she becomes a member of the Dio Old Girls’ League and part of the wider Dio family. She walks in the path of many fine women who have built on the privilege of their education to achieve great things. She walks in the shadow of astonishing thinkers, national leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and creators – all of whom have navigated life’s ups and downs and learnt valuable lessons in the process.

This is what the Dio Old Girls’ League has been focusing on. We will always protect our School’s legacy, but we want to secure the best future possible for all our members – even the little ones. That means marshalling our willing helpers and creating some networks of our own.

One of the goals of the Diocesan Old Girls’ League is to mobilise this vast resource of experience, compassion and practical advice – and it’s certainly one of the School’s priorities as well. We’ve all heard of the ‘old boys’ network’ and often we had no choice but to accept that gender-based social and professional absolutes sometimes trumped true merit. It was as if there was some impenetrable forcefield around certain avenues to accessing opportunity. Women (especially female minority groups) were left on the outside of traditional power structures, wondering why the walls never actually went away, even after the political and institutional barriers were being torn down.

Fortunately, it has never been easier; we are more linked in, connected, collaborative and communicative than we’ve ever been. The next step is to harness that immense resource by providing ways for people to put their hand up and say, “I can help.”

It’s so much easier for young people to make informed choices when someone with real-life experience can give them an honest account of the ups and downs and some advice on the side.

Recently a Dio student was interested in doing clinical psychology but didn’t really know what was required or whether it would be the right fit for her. The careers team asked if we could use our Facebook page (Auckland Dio Old Girls’ League @diocesanOGL) to see if any Old Girls could offer her advice. In under an hour, we had not one, but several people with great connections who were more than willing to help.

KEEN TO SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE? Dio and the Old Girls’ League want to make it easier for women with something to contribute to engage with the current generation. We are always open to new ideas. Do you know someone who might want to help a girl looking at the myriad of choices on offer today? Point her in our direction. Likewise, if you are in a position to offer one-on-one advice, mentoring, work-experience or job-shadowing opportunities, or even come into School to talk to a class about your specific line of work, please contact us at: oldgirls@diocesan.school.nz with the subject line ‘Career connections’.

STAYING CONNECTED If you’re reading this magazine as an Old Girl, it means you’ve taken the decision to stay connected with the School. There’s no special formula to make people feel part of our community but if you know someone who has drifted out of our orbit, please encourage her to reconnect with the League at oldgirls@diocesan.school.nz DIO TODAY

From trauma to

TRIUMPH A head injury and chronic fatigue robbed Mel Abbott of a decade of her life. Now fully recovered, she’s helping others overcome their own health challenges.

or Old Girl and keen Dio Today reader Mel Abbott (PY 1996) life hasn’t turned out at all as she had imagined.

After leaving school, Mel started a BSc in biology. Her goal was to become an environmental scientist, but a head injury at the end of her first year of university ripped away any plans for a normal life. “I spent 11 years on an invalid’s benefit with chronic fatigue and pain, crawling through one uni paper a year towards a psychology degree,” she says. “It was all I could manage amidst the fatigue. I attended only a quarter of my lectures – I was hardly ever well enough to get there.” While her friends were partying, travelling, falling in love, and starting exciting new jobs, Mel was virtually housebound battling ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. “I would lie on the couch all morning and sleep every afternoon from 3 to 6pm. I could barely walk up one flight of stairs and was in a neck brace for six of the 11 years. I couldn’t go flatting, travel, have relationships or have a job. I limped through my degree one paper at a time. I couldn’t read or drive.”

Now completely recovered, she’s helping others overcome a huge range of conditions from fatigue, anxiety and insomnia to eating and autoimmune disorders, multiple sclerosis and depression. “I used to say that if I ever got well, I’d dedicate my life to helping others do the same. And that’s exactly what I have done.” After trying a raft of treatments, Mel travelled to London at the age of 29 to attend a three-day NLP course. NLP, short for neuro linguistic programming, uses the mind to calm the body’s stress response and enable it to heal itself. It changed Mel’s life. Having spent a decade with chronic fatigue, she was fully recovered within two weeks. “From the first day, I stopped having afternoon sleeps. A week later, I danced till 4am. Two weeks after the course, I knew I was all better! I’ve now been well for 12 years and have never had even a hint of a relapse. People often comment that I’m the most energetic person they’ve ever met.” Mel trained as an NLP Master Practitioner and lived in England for two and a half years, working as a social worker and catching up on all the travel she’d missed.

clients with are anxiety, depression, chronic pain and bowel disorders.” Mel is now president of the NZ Association of NLP. For eight years she ran the same NLP course that helped her recover, and became the busiest practitioner in the world with the longest waiting list. Passionate about spreading awareness of mindbody health to the medical community, she’s spoken at the National GP Conference many times and was even voted ‘Best Speaker’ out of 200 Conference speakers. In 2017, Mel consolidated all her training and NLP experience into her own chronic-illness recovery programme called The Switch. Based on psychology and neuro-linguistic programming principles, it’s helped hundreds of people in different ways. According to Mel, many things can prevent your body from healing – among them: being stuck in a stress response or in habitual brain pathways by illness thinking patterns and beliefs; or having unresolved trapped emotions, or a negative physical or social environment that drains your energy. “The Switch helps you to switch off your stress response so your body can start healing naturally. Patients can get stuck in the stress response due to physical or emotional trauma, illness, Type A personality, cancer treatment, burnout, anxiety…” That stress response sends energy to the heart, lungs, thyroid and adrenals so more blood and oxygen can be pumped to the limbs to fight or flee a physical threat. In doing so, it steals energy from other systems and organs, including those involved in digestion, immunity, reproduction and detoxification. Our thinking and belief patterns can feed and maintain that stress response, leading to chronic illness.

The very worst thing, she says, was the fear that she might never recover, coupled with the despair when every treatment failed and the sadness that her twenties were slipping away while she lay on the couch.

In 2010, having returned to New Zealand, she set up her Auckland-based company, Empower Therapies. Since then, she’s helped around 2000 people recover from chronic illness.

Mel also helps clients resolve and clear deeper emotional issues without having to re-experience the trauma that caused them.

But Mel’s isn’t a story of anguish; it’s one of hope, healing and inspiration. Her life has turned a full 180 degrees.

“Around half of my clients suffer from fatigue. I’ve seen more than 200 different conditions, but the other big four I help

She has dozens of astonishing success stories. Many of Mel’s clients say they didn’t just get their life back;

DIO TODAY

She helped a woman recover fully after 38 years of chronic fatigue. Her food intolerances also disappeared. There’s the man who endured three migraines a week for five decades and has never had another since Mel treated him six years ago. A teenage boy in hospital for four months being fed through a tube because he was too weak to swallow, was not only discharged but went surfing the day after attending Mel’s course. “I’ve helped teenagers get out of wheelchairs, and others – including Dio girls – with anxiety, depression, anorexia and chronic fatigue. Many adolescent girls have come to me with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). They arrive on crutches with a foot that they can’t even

touch to the ground. We watch their leg turn from purple to normal skin colour through the course of a session, and they leave walking and running, no crutches required.” Mel follows up all her clients for a year and says around 80 to 90% of them recover. “I absolutely love helping people recover from chronic illness! It’s a dream job really. It all turned out well in the end, even though it was a very traumatic journey to get there. Through being so ill for so long, I’ve learnt more empathy and discovered spirituality. I now trust that my head injury happened for a reason and that every curse has a silver lining.” And there has been another silver lining recently too. As it has done for many of

LIFELONG FRIENDS

they got a better life than they’d ever previously imagined.

us, the lockdown as a result of Covid-19 forced Mel to adapt quickly and rethink the way she operates her business. “I always thought my courses had to be attended in person, and clients travelled from all over New Zealand, Australia and South Africa to see me. But with Covid-19, I was up and running on Zoom in no time and was fascinated to see that the course worked just as well online!” Mel will continue to offer Zoom as an option so that people don’t need to travel to Auckland if they don’t want to. She’s just moved into a new well-being practice and is developing a series of webinars so that she can help a larger number of people all over the world.

Learn more empowertherapies.co.nz

“I used to say that if I ever got well, I’d dedicate my life to helping others do the same. And that’s exactly what I have done.”

DIO TODAY

’ve always been drawn to creativity and art,” says Lizzie. “These interests pop up in everything I do and certainly did all throughout my childhood. I was drawing intricate circles and mandalas before I even knew what they were.” Lizzie attended Dio for her junior and intermediate schooling, leaving in 2008. She went on to do a Bachelor of Design and then gained a Master of Fine Arts from Victoria University of Wellington.

In just a few short years, contemporary visual artist Lizzie Snow’s captivating organic designs have earned her a large following and some exciting collaborative opportunities.

After travelling extensively, she settled in Tofino on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, where she lives with her partner. It’s a resort town of just 2000 inhabitants with beaches and ancient forests that Lizzie describes as a fusion of Raglan and Queenstown – and perfect inspiration for her art. “It’s a fascinating balance between small-town living with fabulous restaurants, beautiful resorts, interesting people and a unique culture,” Lizzie says. “I love living in Canada, but New Zealand will always be home and always have my heart.”

As above, so below Lizzie draws her artistic inspiration from fractals in nature – the ever-repeating patterns found in objects of all sizes throughout the universe, from the shapes of the human nervous system and branching trees to snowflakes,

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

“I have Dio families and alumni who are collectors, which is a lovely link back to my years at the School.”

coastal edges, lightning bolts and galaxy formations. Her designs are intricate and complex, but they’re also universally accessible, perhaps because they contain the very patterns of life that are both within and around us. “I abstract the patterns I see and then reconstruct them through scaling, symmetry and repetition,” she explains. “Fractal patterning allows us to visualise the unbreakable and immense interconnection between humans and nature – they’re a fusion of art, science, mathematics and people. Once you begin to notice these patterns, they start showing up everywhere.”

Archival ink and acrylic paint are the main mediums Lizzie uses for her artwork. In 2014 she founded her business fortyonehundred. The name combines the latitude coordinate of Wellington (41) where her art journey officially began, with the number 100, which relates to the themes of wholeness and completion in her artwork.

Canada and then pockets around the world. I have Dio families and alumni who are collectors, which is a lovely link back to my years at the School.”

Reaching global art-lovers

Embracing collaborative opportunities

In the first few years, Lizzie worked hard to grow both her online and offline audience. She now has more than 125,000 social media followers, predominantly on Instagram. For an artist creating alone, it’s a great tool to share her work and communicate with people around the world. Media coverage, exhibitions, events and word of mouth have helped extend her reach and bring her art to a wider audience. She’s subsequently painted murals in New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada, released limited-edition prints and collectable items, and designed tattoos and clothing. “Most of my collectors are in New Zealand, followed by the United States,

In early 2018, after 10 group shows, Lizzie held her first solo exhibition in Wellington as the final project for her Master of Fine Arts degree.

As Lizzie’s following has increased, so have the chances to co-create. She’s collaborated with a number of well-known New Zealand and international brands. Her first big break came when she was asked to speak at a Lululemon event in Wellington. She then painted a mural for the company and designed golden mandalas that graced Lululemon store windows around New Zealand. Lizzie has also done a limited-edition collaboration with iconic New Zealand brand Blunt Umbrellas. In 2019, she joined forces with Whittaker’s, using the company’s chocolate and foil wrapping to create original mandala designs. Her artwork appears on

DIO TODAY

AllBirds’ shoe boxes and striking black-and-gold cans for Wellington craft brewer Garage Project. In March 2018, she teamed up with Converse and Auckland shoe store Pat Menzies to create an activation with Auckland’s Heart of The City for Fashion Week. “I pre-painted four pairs of shoes in my studio leading up to our live event. These were available to bid on and all proceeds of the shoe sales went to two wonderful charities, Rainbow Youth and The Cameron Wilson Trust. I also customised shoes for anyone who bought a pair of Chucks on the day. It was so busy! I had a huge line-up of shoes and had the best time hand-painting them all.” Lizzie also commits her time and talent to supporting non-profits and social enterprises, such as YouthLine, Wellington Women’s Refuge, ThinkLadder, and Clayoquot CleanUp. She was a featured artist for Denik, a notebook manufacturer that channels proceeds of its sales into building schools in developing countries. 76

DIO TODAY

“I’ve met amazing people through every experience and opportunity,” she says.

her followers get through coronavirus self-isolation.

A recent career highlight for Lizzie was being commissioned to paint five murals for the new Westfield Newmarket. The biggest of these, located on the rooftop bar area, is 30m long and is her largest mural yet.

Lizzie has a collaboration coming out with a New Zealand brand later this year and hopes to be able to come home for the launch event.

In another exciting project, she collaborated with Peugeot NZ and Armstrong Motor Group to wrap a new Peugeot 3008 SUV in her artwork. Lizzie was given creative freedom – a dream brief for any artist – and kept the vehicle for three months to go adventuring in while promoting Peugeot and her artwork.

“It’s a very cool eco-minded brand, so keep an eye out for that. I’m also pleased to have just started working with Domestika, an online education platform. I’ve been invited to their headquarters in Madrid where they have studios and film crews, to teach a drawing class, which will eventually be available for purchase on their platform.” As if that weren’t enough, after a great deal of hard work, she’s also launching a jewellery line.

Even bigger plans on the horizon In the midst of the massive upheaval that COVID-19 brought to lives around the world, Lizzie stayed in North America and is grateful to have been living in a safe and reasonably isolated community that hasn’t been touched by the virus. Her home-based online business allowed her to continue creating and planning new projects. She even shared her art – the Dio school community included – as free downloadable colouring pages to help

“In my original artworks, I’m heading in the direction of larger, statement works for private collections. I have many ideas and options on the horizon, and I’m incredibly grateful to be on this path. Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way!”

You can follow Lizzie on Instagram @fortyonehundred or visit her website fortyonehundred.co.nz

LIFELONG FRIENDS

CASE CLOSED

As a private investigator, former Dio girl Julia Robson (2000) has busted an organised crime gang in Malaysia, reunited separated family members, conducted surveillance on cheating spouses, and done background checks on reality show applicants. She tells us more about her fascinating career. How did you become a private investigator? After school, I did a gap year in the UK and when I returned to New Zealand, I wanted to study criminology, but it wasn’t offered at the University of Auckland, so I joined the NZ Police. Even though I was still young, I wanted to become a detective. My senior sergeant at the time told me to take two years’ leave without pay to get some more life experience. I returned to the UK and ended up getting a job as a corporate investigator. I’d never had any interactions with private investigators before and I really didn’t know what they did. The company I worked for mainly investigated trademark infringement, but the cases were incredibly interesting and not the type of thing I could have worked on in New Zealand. Their clients were major fashion brands and I had to

travel around fashion fairs throughout Europe to gather information and evidence about counterfeit products and brand protection using covert methods. This could be as simple as looking for fake Disney toys, right up to posing as a fashion buyer to prove backdoor stock was being sold in Italy for unethical distribution within the UK. With my two years’ leave from the NZ Police nearly up, I was planning to go back to my police job in Auckland, but I did a detour to Melbourne on the way back. That was in 2007 and I’m still here! So yeah … things didn’t quite go as planned.

How did you set up your own investigation business? My first job in Australia was working for a private investigation firm that did all the stuff most people think investigators do: cheating spouses, locating debtors, serving divorce papers etc. I hate that

line of work as it’s very hard to get satisfaction from people’s misery. Around 2008, some of my friends started online dating. It was quite a taboo thing back in the day, so most people didn’t admit they were on there. My friends, and other clients, started asking me in confidence to tell them more about the dates they were meeting online. As a young, computer-savvy female, I was completely different to most other private investigators who were all mainly retired male ex-cops who barely knew how to switch a computer on! I realised I had quite a niche in my industry and so I started my own company, Online Investigations, in 2012. I work with an ex-undercover cop fulltime, but I have subcontractors all around the world who specialise in different areas. I call on them, depending on what the job requires. DIO TODAY

“These days it’s not so much the job that fascinates me, it’s more the client I’m working for. I’m fortunate to have met some very interesting people in my line of work.”

What sort of cases do you get involved with? My main focus is identifying the anonymous online – they could be anonymous social media profiles, organised crimes operating online, owners of a website selling counterfeit goods etc. But I offer my services to anyone who has a problem. Sometimes I’ll take on a client dealing with a criminal matter who has been turned away by the police due to lack of evidence or resources, or unfortunately the police might not recognise the criminal offence due to lack of education around computer-based crimes such as theft and cyberbullying or trolling. As an investigator I play an important role in gathering all the evidence, preparing a file and presenting it in a completed format that increases the likelihood of a criminal charge being laid by the police. There can be periods where it’s noticeably quiet, or you can be inundated with jobs. I’ll usually have 10 to 15 files a month. Sometimes less if the jobs are more complex. I love the work I do, so I am often doing something work related on the computer.

Are there any jobs you find particularly fascinating? These days it’s not so much the job that fascinates me, it’s more the client I’m working for. I’m fortunate to have met some very interesting people in my line of work. I’ve learnt that just because someone may be incredibly intelligent and financially successful, when it comes to matters of the heart, they can find themselves in incredibly vulnerable, and sometimes risky, situations. 78

DIO TODAY

I used to have a segment on a popular Melbourne breakfast radio show where listeners would provide me with a case to solve. The radio show would cover all the costs, provided it was played out on air. I solved over 20 cases and it helped make the breakfast show number one in the ratings.

What’s been your career highlight to date? In 2010 there was an organised crime gang preying on Australian and New Zealand women online. I was fortunate to travel to Malaysia and be involved in a bust of this group with the assistance of Malaysian Police and a TV crew. It was a great opportunity to work with some different organisations and gave me a real insight into how international police forces work. Of course, the work undertaken in the Chasing Charlie podcast was a personal highlight of mine, but it was also quite lonely work for me.

Has your work ever put you in danger personally? The very nature of investigation work means not everyone is going to be happy with you. There are always risks with this type of work, but it’s about ensuring you carry out work lawfully, conduct necessary risk assessment, and do your best to diffuse certain situations.

Is it expensive hiring a private investigator? Using an investigation firm can be significantly cheaper than the alternatives, like trying to get court orders/subpoenas for the same

information, or ‘hoping for the best’ rather than paying for a background check, or spending your life with the wrong person rather than paying upfront for surveillance. I do take on pro bono cases, as they give me an opportunity to help some wonderful people who I wouldn’t otherwise be able to work with.

Do people come to you for help, then ignore your warnings? Absolutely. Several times I’ve been accused of photoshopping or making up overwhelming evidence after they confront their cheating spouse with the evidence and that person refuses to admit the truth. Most people know the term ‘gaslighting’ and it’s a very common behaviour. Family members will come to me asking for background checks on their loved one’s new partner. Financial scams and elder abuse are tricky as my job is to gather the evidence and present it in a matter-offact way. Unfortunately, you can’t be responsible for what people choose to do with that information.

What’s the biggest sum of money any of your clients has ever been swindled out of? A woman sold her $1.2 million home so she could send the money to her lover who claimed to be an American soldier stranded in Afghanistan. Of course, it was all a scam. She lost her home, her children lost their inheritance, and it reached the point where she could only afford to eat toast for every meal – an incredibly heart-breaking situation.

Do you have any advice on protecting yourself from scammers? Any requests for money should always be treated as a business transaction and appropriate due diligence should take place. These days, everyone has some kind of digital footprint and if they don’t, then you should be very cautious. Trust your gut instinct! It’s surprising how accurate women’s intuition is. Julia recently released a podcast called Chasing Charlie that chronicles her success in bringing down notorious New Zealand conman Paul Bryan Gill after a seven-year search. Note: Due to the nature of the content, Chasing Charlie is only suitable for a mature audience.

LIFELONG FRIENDS

MILESTONES

UPCOMING EVENTS

Deaths Judith Braithwaite (White, PY 1952) on 12 May 2020 Helen Bull (Lane, PY 1959) on 16 March 2020 Melissa Jane Joblin (PY 1999) on 14 June 2020 Jill Marks (Thomson, PY 1942) on 11 May 2020 Kathryn McLaren (Baker, PY 1959) on 20 August 2019 Margaret Jean McPhail (PY 1951) on 10 March 2020 Jillian Pitu (Reeves, PY 1958) on 15 March 2020 Bonnie-Joy Shanahan (Derbidge, PY 1992) on 11 May 2020 Margery Shepherd (Brook-Smith, PY 1941) on 13 May 2020 Aileen Swanston (Wallers, PY 1944) on 16 March 2020 aged 92 years Helen Taylor (Nash, PY 1949) on 6 June 2020 Elizabeth Watson (Buchanan, PY 1951) on 24 April 2020 Patricia Woods (Reed, PY 1954) on 14 April 2020 The School acknowledges with respect the passing of past staff members Erin Walker (social sciences teacher) on 25 July and Tony O’Hagan (cycling/triathlon coach) on 16 June.

Achievements Mikaela Russell (PY 2013) – Master of Design, Auckland University of Technology, August 2019 / Bachelor of Design (Digital) 2017 Note: PY is short for ‘Peer Year’ and indicates the year an Old Girl would have been in Form 7 (Year 13) had she continued her schooling at Dio through until the end.

JOIN THE

Auckland Dio Old Girls’ League FACEBOOK PAGE STAY CONNECTED. Join us online and be part of a 6000-strong community of former students, staff and parents sharing news, opinions, updates, profiles, photos and Dio memories. OGL Committee member Penny Tucker runs the page and would love to hear your stories and updates.

SENIOR OLD GIRLS’ CHAPEL SERVICE AND MORNING TEA Tuesday 1 September Chapel of our Glorified Lord and Diocesan School Hall The day will begin with a 10.15am service in the Chapel, followed by morning tea in the School Hall. All Old Girls in our database who left school in 1969 or earlier will be contacted with an official invitation. If you have former classmates and friends whose contact details may have changed, please encourage them to email oldgirls@diocesan.school.nz so that we can remain in touch with them. ALUMNA MERITA ASSEMBLY Monday 21 September Dawn Jones Sports Centre Attendance by invitation. DIOCESAN YEAR 13 GRADUATION BALL Saturday 12 December Cordis Hotel, Symonds Street Please note that due to the changes to the NCEA examination timetable, the date of the Graduation Ball has been changed. DIO TODAY

A team of experts with individual skills, combined to provide the highest standards in complete breast care.

D R C AT H E R I N E P BDS, MDS (Otago)

D R C AT H E O RIN T EORN T I S T RET P HOORD BDS, MDS (Otago)

S MILE W ITH C ONFIDENCE

OR T H O D O N T I S T S MILE W ITH C ONFIDENCE

Ground Floor, Ascot Central 7 Ellerslie Racecourse Drive Remuera, Auckland 1051

~ for more information ~

(09) 522 1346 www.breastassociates.co.nz

www.cportho.co.nz 522 2767 8 Saint Vincent Avenue Remuera

Look out for your next copy of Dio Today in November 2020! Option 1

• In–home care • Post operative

• Palliative care • 24 hour care

Mob: 027 439 0871 Tel: (09) 579 1212 Email: office@katemcleanhomecare.co.nz

www.katemcleanhomecare.co.nz

We welcome your call or email for a free, no obligation assessment.

Overseas model shown

MY19 PETROL LEVANTE 12yr/120,000kms complimentary scheduled servicing~ (whichever occurs ﬁrst)

WINGER MASERATI 21 GREAT SOUTH ROAD, NEWMARKET 1051 PHONE: 09 520 1588 WWW.WINGER.CO.NZ

~Complimentary scheduled servicing is for 12 years or 120,000kms (whichever comes first). Scheduled services occur at the first occurring of: (1) 2 years or 20,000 kms; (2) 4 years or 40,000 kms; (3) 6 years or 60,000; (4) 8 years or 80,000 kms; (5) 10 years or 100,000 kms; and (6) 12 years or 120,000 kms . Excludes wear and tear items and additional work or components required that are not set out in the vehicle’s manufacturer service book. New stock vehicles only. At participating Maserati dealers. Applies to vehicles purchased and delivered between 1 July 2020 and 30 September 2020. While stock lasts. The complimentary scheduled servicing is not transferrable by the original purchaser of the vehicle to a subsequent owner of the vehicle. Not available to fleet, government or rental buyers, or with any other offers.