Dio Today - June 2023

JUNE 2023

From the editors Diocesan School for Girls Clyde Street, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand Private Bag 99939, Newmarket 1149 P. 09 520 0221 F. 09 520 6778 E. offce@diocesan.school.nz DIOCESAN.SCHOOL.NZ ACTING BOARD CHAIR Mrs Mindy Levene 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 Sue Cattell DEPUTY PRINCIPAL JUNIOR SCHOOL Ms Nicole Lewis DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND PLANNING Mrs Kerry Burridge DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Ms Shelley Johnston DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Mrs Angela Coe DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE Mrs Jocelyn Anso DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS Mrs Kate Jones HEAD PREFECT Āniva Clarke DEPUTY HEAD PREFECT

Samantha Smith

DIO TODAY is produced through the Marketing Office of Diocesan School for Girls and is designed and published

by Soar Communications Group Limited. For information about this publication, contact the Editor, Liz McKay, E. lmckay@diocesan.school.nz Alumnae liaison and proofreading, Deirdre Coleman, E. d.g@slingshot.co.nz Commissioned photography by Nicola Topping, Real Image (realimage.co.nz).

For the first time in three years, Dio was finally able to run a full calendar of events and activities in terms one and two. We are delighted that all our regular arts and sporting events could take place with no COVID interruptions.

EOTC Week was a wonderful opportunity for the girls in Years 7 to 13 to come together and experience a strong sense of community with their year-group cohort while challenging themselves individually. Another highlight was the inaugural Dio Culture Night, which celebrated the School’s diversity through dance, music and food, fostering inclusion and meaningful connections.

The pandemic has certainly highlighted the importance of community. This was evident in the incredible response following the storms that hit Auckland in late January and early February.

Working bees led by the properties team saw staff and community volunteers help clean up flooded areas of the campus so the school year could get underway.

In her chaplain’s homily on page 44, Reverend Sandy Robertson explores the concept of community and notes that it requires commitment and effort.

The strength of a community lies in its solid foundation in love, and the way we see ourselves impacts how we relate to others. Self-love and acceptance can help us to love others and become better members of our community.

Continue to take care of yourself and of each other as we embrace postpandemic living.

Deirdre Coleman and Liz McKay Dio Today editors

“When we look at what binds us together as community here at Dio – the shared vision for outstanding education, the values of honesty, integrity, respectfulness, and empathy from our Strategic Direction document, and the aspirational statements in our Culture code, it is clear that we have the desire and intention to be community. To ensure that our foundations are solid requires commitment and effort. I challenge each one of us to demonstrate that commitment to this community and to put in the effort. It can be transformational.”

The Rev’d Sandy Robertson, Chaplain

T R E N Z S E AT E R AUCKLAND - 80 Parnell Rd, 09 303 4151 CHRISTCHURCH - 121 Blenheim Rd, 03 343 0876 QUEENSTOWN - 313 Hawthorne Dr, 03 441 2363 www.trenzseater.com

JUNE 2023

14 18

37

54

50

LEADING 02 From the Principal 04 2023 School leaders – bringing values to life

06 News from the Heritage Foundation 14 Start-of-year disruption; dealing with the deluge

LEARNING 16 Academic performance continues to impress

20 IB Conference; connecting with fellow IB educators from the Asia Pacific region

22 New staff bring international flavour to Dio

26 ChatGPT – what are its implications for teaching and learning?

29 Welcome return of EOTC Week 32 Tourism in Hawaii – real-life learning

29

62 35 Ethics at Dio 37 Junior School news . . . from literacy

32

74 ON THE COVER

to sports action

LIVING

JUNE 2023

44 Chaplaincy – the importance of community

46 Performing Arts 54 Sport 62 Parents & Friends of Dio

LIFELONG FRIENDS 65 President’s column 66 Fifth generation families at Dio 71 Women2Watch – Natasha Wright and Melany Park

74 The 2022 Graduation Ball 76 Alumnae news 80 Milestones

DioToday_Cover_June 2023_V3.indd 2

3/07/23 10:12 AM

At the Cultural Evening, celebrated in Term 2, Head Prefect Aniva Clarke performed a traditional Samoan dance called a taualuga. Traditionally, this was performed by the eldest daughter of the Matai, the village chief. The daughter of the Matai is called the Taupou.

A Samoan Taupou represents her family, her village and her values.

She is expected to carry herself with grace and elegance. When a Taupou performs a taualunga, she wears specific and sacred attire.

Photo credit: Nicola Topping, Real Image.

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

THE POSITIVE “Our wider commitment to education extends the development of a professional culture that feeds into the future of our country.

We want to fully participate in change, even though at times the implementation is rocky, slightly unpredictable, and hard. We are using our voices and the talents of many to keep our school and community a place of enrichment and enhancement, and a place of positive change.”

Heather McRae

2

DIO TODAY

POWER

OF CHANGE IN

EDUCATION A s with many women in the world of history, Coretta Scott King was the lesserknown wife of Dr Martin Luther King. She was a writer, and the architect of Dr King’s legacy, creating the King Center. Coretta was a lifelong human rights activist for social change and peace. She was among the most prominent women leaders of our time.

She said: “It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are indeed part of the problem.”

In education, there is change and to some extent there always has been.

Nationally there is an ambitious strategy that we support because research indicates that achievement standards across curriculum areas, and particularly in literacy and numeracy, are declining. While not the only OECD country experiencing these declines, it has been our ambition to assist this country on a positive journey to enhance the quality and outcomes for all students across the country. Rising tides lift all ships and what we can do in the private sector is to be voices and influencers for the future. We need great young men and women who, like us, had the opportunity to thrive in schools, whether they were state, stateintegrated, or private.

Some of the problems we have relate to the pace of change and balancing consistency of learning opportunities across the country, with flexibility to address new technologies and relevant world issues impacting on the quality of life itself. This adjustment of the loose-tight challenge is difficult in an environment where the years have drifted by with a very broad state curriculum that has steadily lost its ability to define any consistency of knowledge, literacy, and numeracy acquisition. The well-known and widespread inconsistency and gap in the outcomes for children has exacerbated disadvantage and things need to change.

While we can be comfortable in our space with an International Baccalaureate Framework, clear definitions of literacy and numeracy, and the ability to enhance our curriculum breadth and depth, it is important for us to share good practice and be part of positive change for the future. We want to use our voice. Currently we have many staff working in areas that will enhance our practice, but also contribute to the wider national change initiatives.

In 2021, Diocesan teamed up with 12 state, state-integrated and private

LEADING

schools to develop our own collective teacher training programme. We assessed various universities and collaborated with Waikato University, which could offer approved online papers.

Graduates or career changers join us for a year within each school. We interview and select our own candidates and since 2021, we have trained six teachers at Diocesan.

Across schools, we have trained 40 teachers, and 60 are participating in training this year.

The trainee teachers complete online papers, and our founding schools deliver 12 professional development days over the year targeting specific areas of curriculum design, topic planning, culturally responsive pedagogy, assessment, appraisal, and ethical guidelines. Trainees learn to teach alongside our professionals and are connected to school life and our community, understanding the policies, processes, and timelines of a one-year school cycle. They receive an honorarium, have their fees paid and are bonded for two years to any one of our schools. All our candidates have been employed and we are assisting the general shortage of teachers by targeting hard-to-staff areas.

We are also delighted to be assisting a young woman to train this year.

Kali Haenga is fluent in Te Reo and Mātauranga Māori but did not have the opportunity to gain tertiary qualifications. With special recognition for her abilities, she is training with us, enabling her to access the salary scale alongside all other teachers for fulfilling the same role. We hope that this will ensure an equitable journey and recognition of the leader and role model she is.

Over the development of NCEA, two of our heads of faculty have been representatives on the Specialist

Experts Groups (SEG). Our Head of Faculty English, Susy Carryer, has been pivotal in the English SEG and our Head of Health and PE Faculty, Michelle Ogilvie, has been a SEG member for her subject area. While we are blessed with many specialist experts at Dio, we were delighted to contribute to the design of NCEA and to fully engage with the new changes. We have also been a pilot school for the English Level 1 new standards so have learned a lot from the changes. Being involved nationally helps us contribute as well as receive the latest information for our planning.

We are also proud of our growing commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi through the development and implementation of our Mātauranga Māori programme that is supported through Te Whare Huia – our centre for educational leadership developed by Māori. Ashley Pihema established the centre and an outstanding programme that enables all students to learn the wisdom and knowledge of Māori. The

programme also engages students in understanding the theory of knowledge – that knowledge evolves (and continues to evolve) from cultural roots in ways that explain and describe the world. With a Wānanga o Aotearoa partnership, free Te Reo courses at Dio are undertaken by many staff and parents. Wherever we go in the world, understanding cultures starts with understanding our own indigenous past and present.

Our wider commitment to education extends the development of a professional culture that feeds into the future of our country. We want to fully participate in change, even though at times the implementation is rocky, slightly unpredictable, and hard. We are using our voices and the talents of many to keep our school and community a place of enrichment and enhancement, and a place of positive change.

Ut Serviamus Heather McRae, Principal DIO TODAY

3

Student leadership New student leaders focus on bringing values to life Dio Head Prefect Āniva Clarke, who has been an environmental activist since she was 10 years old, wants to use her role this year to lead the School’s studentfocused sustainability initiatives and promote greater awareness of climate change and environmental issues.

Āniva is one of 12 global youth advisors on the Children’s Advisory Team (CAT), established last year to facilitate youth consultations on children’s rights, the environment and climate change.

Head Prefect Āniva Clarke (right) and Deputy Head Prefect Sammy Smith (left)

“I grew up connected to the natural world, spending a lot of time immersed in nature,” says Samoan-raised Āniva, who is also the School’s Pasifika group co-leader.

“This nurtured my love for the environment and desire to protect my home. All these elements have played a big role in who I am today.”

Āniva’s name, which means ‘the Milky Way’ in Samoan, represents her

Polynesian ancestors, their courage and resilience, and their strong connection to the natural environment.

“My parents held the strong belief that raising my sister, Elei, and me in Samoa was important for us to understand where we belong, our culture and our values,” she says.

“I’m very proud to be Samoan, so being able to share my culture and Pacific values with the Dio community is very important to me.”

PUTTING VALUES INTO ACTION “We know there can be a gap between knowing our values and actually living them,” says Āniva.

“For many of us, we understand these values, but may find it harder to put them into action.”

That is where Āniva and Deputy Head Prefect Sammy Smith, along with the help of their Year 13 cohort, came up with their theme for the year, which is ‘Bridging the Gap’.

Āniva and Sammy have identified several gaps they want to bridge this year, including the gaps between year levels, diversity and sustainability.

“We want to use our theme of ‘Bridging the Gap’ to celebrate and embrace our diversity, to care for our environment and to find similarities between ourselves and each other,” says Sammy.

Sammy, who is an active volunteer surf lifesaver and instructor, is passionate about practising whanaungatanga (forming and maintaining relationships) as a way of instilling a sense of belonging.

“It’s about connecting different parts of our lives, and different parts of the School community,” she says. “We often just stick to relationships within our peer groups as those are the most comfortable.

4

DIO TODAY

SCHOOL LEADERS 2023 DEPUTY HEAD PREFECT

Āniva Clarke

Sammy Smith

HOUSES

LEADER

DEPUTIES

JUNIOR HIGH DEPUTIES

Cochrane

Hattie Miles

Georgia Daly, Lucia Ferguson

Chloe Pritchard, Alba Erikson

Cowie

Jenna Veal

Georgia Burns, Sophie Shuttleworth

Georgia Tierney, Annabelle Judd

Eliza Edwards

Lucy Blanchard

Eva Allan, Felicity Bannatyne

Bronte Woolfgram, Sophia Haines

Mary Pulling

Kate Skinner-Spence

Tyler Butler, Alice Sharpe

Zara Oliyath, Millie Knights

Mitchelson

Victoria Wright

Sophie Armstrong, Coco Pett

Zara Khan, Francesca Eglinton

Neligan

Portia Loveday

Maia Hunter, Maddison Tongue

Claudia Lim, Georgie Wilson

Roberton

Eliza East

Becky Christie, Maia Souloglou

Millie Bridger, Izzy Coney

Selwyn

Lucy Nevill

Bella Cranefield, Juliet Nasrabadi

Genevieve Fail, Sophia Davies

COUNCILS

LEADER

DEPUTIES

Academic

Alexandra Graney

Nina Fisher, Lilly Lang

Arts

Pascale Vincent

Charlotte Snookes, Eleanor Tenbensel

Ball

Xanthe Williams

Holly Barker, Isobel Fletcher

Birthday Concert

Aimee Schnuriger

Mia Tinkler, Anika Wood

Community Service

Tessa Hicken

Sienna Kulatunga, Margot Sullivan

Environment

Alex Wackrow

Lucy Irwin, Sofia Phillimore

Ethics

Lauren Chee

Maisie Cavanagh, Mackenzie Marlo

Media

Georgia Broadbent-Berge

Elizabeth Peters, Charlotte Young

School Culture

Bharathi Manikandan

Kaea Heke, Saranee Pasupati

Sport

Grace Allan

Brooke Chandler, Grace Wellington

Student Services

Olivia Turnbull

Jessica Barclay, Danielle Foster

OTHER LEADERSHIP ROLES

LEADER

DEPUTIES

Leila Ibrahim Larissa Lau

Abby Dowden Christina Cai

Head boarder Head of international students

LEADING

HEAD PREFECT

“We want to use our theme of ‘Bridging the Gap’ to celebrate and embrace our diversity, to care for our environment and to find similarities between ourselves and each other.”

Sammy Smith

HONORARY PREFECTS At the end of Term 2, six honorary prefects were appointed – congratulations to Anika Wood, Kaea Heke, Hannah Smith, Felicity Bannatyne, Georgia Burns and Bella Cranefield.

“At its simplest, ‘Bridging the Gap’ represents connection,” she says.

“Connection between knowing our values and actually practising them.”

‘Bridging the Gap’ underpins the School’s Ko Tātou initiative focus of Being decently genuine and Caring for the environment this year.

“Our focus on ‘Bridging the Gap’ will enable us to not only talk about being genuine or caring for the environment, but also to put our words into action,” says Āniva.

LEADING THROUGH EXAMPLE The student leaders plan to put ‘Bridging the Gap’ into practice through a range of initiatives throughout the year, the first one being Neighbourhoods. The concept encourages interaction and connections between tutor groups by pairing up groups to play a range of games.

“Playing games will hopefully start that initial conversation between students, allowing them to get to know each other and hopefully build a relationship,

therefore bridging the gap between year levels and houses,” says Sammy.

They will also focus on their theme for their presentations to different year groups and full school assemblies, and also by acting as role models.

“We know that the younger students look up to the senior students for guidance, and follow their example,” says Sammy.

“We plan to demonstrate and exemplify all the values that encompass young women in a contemporary world.”

DIO TODAY

5

HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Heritage foundation trustees, from left to right, top row: Simon Plowman, Carlie Eve, chair. Front row: Mike Bayley, Jenny Spillane, Heather McRae, Terence Ng and Rebecca Cottrell.

ENHANCING THE CULTURE OF

Philanthropy in its many forms is a valuable aspect of Diocesan’s history. From its very earliest days when the founders, prominent Aucklanders, contributed £350 to purchase the property the campus occupies today, giving has enabled the School to flourish.

What wonderful foresight!

6

DIO TODAY

Today’s campus is the result of the many generations of families, staff and alumnae who have continued to contribute over the past 120 years to ensure Dio remains at the forefront of girls’ education.

The Diocesan Heritage Foundation was established in 2001 to enhance that culture of philanthropy and support the School to deliver, in Bishop Neligan’s, words “the very best scholarship for every Dio girl”. The purpose of the Foundation is to support the School through fundraising initiatives and projects to ensure the best facilities, and staff and student opportunities are available to all.

Today, there are three streams for giving to the Foundation:

Future and facilities With the wonderful generosity of our community, the Diocesan Heritage Foundation has supported many of the School’s new facilities over the past 25 years; from the Junior School to the Aquatic Centre, the strengthening of the Chapel and the redevelopment of the Chapel Courtyard to the Performing Arts Centre.

Sport and the arts The Foundation supports student achievement across the many sports

Scholarship and support The Staff Scholarship Fund has supported Dio staff to attend outstanding career opportunities globally. Recently Lisa Mave (Head of Social Sciences Faculty) went to the Inge Woolf Memorial Seminar in Jerusalem – read about her experience on page 25 of this magazine.

Student scholarships, bursaries and grants have supported students in several ways. These may be awarded at prize giving – such as music awards; supporting academic success – a student attending the World Bio

Olympiad or a Future Problem Solving competition; or, as in the ‘Dio Together 2020’ campaign, when the pandemic hit, assisting families to ensure their daughters could stay at Dio when family circumstances had changed.

The Heritage Foundation trustees The trustees’ principal role is to oversee the investment of the Fund.

Despite a high level of turbulence in global financial markets over the last year, the Fund has proved resilient, reflecting the lower risk and diversified investment approach implemented by the Foundation early in 2021.

The Foundation’s investment consultant EriksensGlobal continues to closely monitor the current selection of fund managers within the parameters set by the Foundation, and with consideration for the ongoing uncertain and volatile outlook across financial markets.

We have recently welcomed Jenny Spillane and Terence Ng as trustees.

LEADING

codes, performing arts activities and the visual arts with grants and bursaries. The Sports and Arts Funds receive donations from which grants are awarded for students to participate in national and international competitions and activities. Equipment and instruments such as the Steinway grand piano and new rowing boats are also supported by the Foundation on application.

Jenny Spillane Jenny is a proud Dio alumna, along with her two daughters Eleanor and Natalie. Jenny joined the Diocesan Alumnae Association Committee in 2015 and was President from 2017 until 2021. She remains on the committee as vice president. Jenny was appointed as a trustee of the Diocesan Heritage Foundation in August 2022 and brings extensive commercial legal experience from working in in-house legal roles across different industries.

Terence Ng Terence joined the Foundation in February 2023, and he and his wife Michelle have a daughter at Dio and a son at King’s College. Terence is a partner at Buddle Findlay where he specialises in banking and finance, corporate and commercial, and property law; and has acted for clients for their outbound investments in New Zealand. Terence is passionate about quality school education and the School providing the best opportunities to its students to discover and explore their full potential.

Let’s make Dio accessible to families and girls who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend THE DIOCESAN KO TĀTOU SCHOLARSHIP We are one and together we can truly impact tomorrow!

The fundraising campaign for this scholarship programme seeks to raise the funds to provide two full scholarships each year for students entering Year 9 through to Year 13.

Join us in giving the opportunity of a lifetime!

The Director of Development Angela Coe oversees giving at Dio and enjoys

every opportunity to meet families and learn what lights the spark of philanthropy for each of you.

GIVE TODAY https://www.diocesan.school.nz/donate/ Angela Coe acoe@diocesan.school.nz All donations are appreciated, there is no minimum! All donations are acknowledged with a tax receipt.

DIO TODAY

7

Greg Horton and Kerin Russell-Smith

From left – Val Croon, Natasha Croon, Sharleen McKinnon, Jason Jones, Lisa Baggaley, Steven Baggaley

Diocesan Heritage Foundation Gala Dinner It was a night of glitz and glamour as 200 guests gathered at the stunningly decorated Arts Centre to raise funds for the Ko Tātou Scholarship.

Mike Bayley, Carlie Eve and Greer Kirk

Lotosina Tavui (Year 11) pulled heartstrings with a spectacular version of Ave Maria. Charleeh Blu Bagby (Year 12) and 2015 Head Prefect Alice Tilley inspired the audience with their outstanding experiences at Dio. Thanks to MC Paula Bennett and Bayleys’ auctioneer Justin Haley there was plenty of buzz for the live auction. The auction item of the night had to be Diocesan Junior School Principal for the day. Three parents donated thousands for the opportunity for their

daughters to be principal for a day. Priceless!

The Dio spirit continued to flow throughout the evening with over $100,000 raised from the auction.

Congratulations to Dio Development team Director Angela Coe and Kate Eatts.

Many thanks to key sponsors Halo & Swoon, Winger and Bayleys and all the generous supporters who donated to the auction.

Paula Gair, Heather McRae and Kate Eatts

Liz Style, Margaret van Meeuwen, Angela Coe with Charleeh Blu Bagby and Lotosina Tavui

8

DIO TODAY

LEADING Tatum Savage, Paula Gair, Jenny Spillane

Margot Kynoch, Emma Manson, Nicky Richardson, Camilla de Beer

Angela Coe modelling the Patridge Fope bracelet for auction, Paula Bennett and Justin Hayley, auctioneer

Our thanks to the sponsors and supporters of the Diocesan Gala Dinner Principal Sponsors Bayleys Halo & Swoon Winger

Supporting Sponsors Altrad

Baduzzi – Michael P Dearth Bayley Family City Cake Company Container Door Derek Chan Violin Studio ECC Eco Store Edgar Family Emma Lewisham Skincare Faradays Great Catering Company

Verity Burgess

Lenski Maman Mark & Rachel Ching Mount Cook Alpine Salmon Neat Meat Netball NZ/Silver Ferns Olivia Kirkpatrick Photography Parnell Tennis Club Partridge Jewellers Real World Russell Property Group

The Hunting Lodge The Potting Shed Winter Games NZ Wonder Events

Thank you to: Gala Committee Dio Property team Performing Arts Events team

DIO TODAY

9

Grandparents’ Day On Tuesday 28 March, after not being able to do so for several years due to COVID restrictions, we once again hosted a highly successful Grandparents’ Day. With over 700 attendees at this year’s event, there was a sense of great delight and joy as grandparents and significant people descended on Diocesan to see their granddaughters’ campus and work.

Guests were treated to several performances in the Arts Centre Auditorium before enjoying complimentary light refreshments and meeting with their granddaughters for a school tour. We wish to thank everyone who attended and made this day such a pleasure.

If you would like to view all the photos from this wonderful day we encourage you to visit our photographer’s website: https://realimage.co.nz/portfolio/dio-2023.

10

DIO TODAY

LEADING

Fiona Thomson, Maria Mackintosh, Melinda Smale, Regan Smale, Hatty Evans and Rich Evans

Robin Bell & Rebecca Goldwater

Angela Coe, Carlie Eve and Margaret van Meeuwen

Margaret van Meeuwen, Catherine Materi, Alvin Materi, Katie Wesney & Anthony Wesney

Michael Bullen, Hue Bullen, Dusan Matic, Deborah Grace, Gavin Grace

‘New to Dio’ cocktails On Thursday 16 March, the Heritage Foundation in conjunction with Diocesan School for Girls, hosted all parents new to the School this year, along with all Year 7 parents to meet and mingle at the ‘New to Dio’ cocktails.

This event was well attended and guests enjoyed hearing from Principal Heather McRae and Director of Development Angela Coe. Thank you to those who joined us.

Sally Pang, Feifei Huang & Susan Li

Joanna Chan

A special acknowledgement must go to the Heritage Foundation for hosting this event. We’re also grateful to Woozoo Group for providing the delicious canapés and bar service throughout the night and to JadCup for their generosity in providing the biodegradable serving dishes. Lastly, a big thank you to our wonderful Parents and Friends of Dio volunteers for waiting on our guests.

DIO TODAY

11

Better results, time after time.

Why do Bayleys have such loyal customers? Because we get better results time after time, year after year and decade after decade across residential, commercial and rural.

Experience Altogether Better 0800 BAYLEYS I bayleys.co.nz LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

Residential / Commercial / Rural / Property Services

LEADING

THE DIOCESAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR THE

HONOR JENSEN AWARD FOR 2023/24

HONOR JENSEN MEMORIAL AWARD

Past recipient Charlotte Bennett (Alumna 2005) Charlotte Bennett was awarded an Honor Jensen Memorial scholarship in 2016 while studying at Oxford University. The award helped to finance the completion of her DPhil. Heather McRae was delighted to present the award to Charlotte at the London reunion in September 2016.

To quote Charlotte’s application: “My doctoral thesis is at the cutting edge of transnational children’s history; while age has been identified as a significant category of analysis in First World War studies, published work overwhelmingly uses national approaches to focus on continental Europe, Britain, Australia, and Canada.

This project treats prestigious Irish and New Zealand boys’ secondary colleges as case studies, juxtaposing youth reactions against those of their

teacher counterparts in addition to staffarticulated expectations.”

Charlotte’s more recent work on returning to New Zealand is at the University of Auckland. She has had a research management role since the beginning of 2019 and was awarded a Royal Society Marsden Fast Start grant to study children’s experiences of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

The Honor Jensen Memorial Fund provides annual grants “for the advancement and enjoyment of history and the classics by any member of the Diocesan School community — current student, alumna, staff member of the School.”

Miss Honor Jensen was a much loved history, Latin and English teacher and Senior Mistress at Diocesan for 27 years from 1937 to 1964.

Her contribution to Diocesan was exceptional and she devoted herself to the education and welfare of the girls at the School.

If you wish to apply, please contact Angela Coe acoe@diocesan.school.nz

WOMEN2WATCH Also a Heritage Foundation event, Women2Watch, celebrating the achievements of Dio alumnae under the age of 35 years, was held during Term 1. You can read about our 2023 Women2Watch on pages 71-73 in the Lifelong Friends section of Dio Today.

DIO TODAY

13

BUSINESS AND PLANNING

START-OF-YEAR DISRUPTION...

AGAIN On Friday 27 January, the Auckland region was hit hard by torrential rain and flash flooding just as the anniversary long weekend was getting underway.

Much of the city was impacted, with more than 280mm of rain falling in under 24 hours. Twenty-five suburbs were affected, some motorways were closed and thousands of homes were assessed for damage.

Then, on the morning of Wednesday 1 February, we were hit with a second storm. NIWA has described it as a onein-200-year event for the Auckland and Coromandel regions.

As the series of storms coincided with the start of the school year, and many schools were flooded, the Ministry recommended schools not open until 7 February and Diocesan complied with this directive while our students and teachers switched to online learning.

14

DIO TODAY

DIO CAMPUS At the peak of the storm, civil engineers measured that 4,000 litres of water a minute was pouring into the grounds from neighbouring areas. The floodwaters inundated the grounds and entered multiple buildings, but generally the campus held up well.

The water flow from Margot St and surrounding areas caused significant water damage on the western side of the campus. The Uniform Shop, underground carpark, Aquatic Centre and our Archive were all impacted.

The carpark was where the most water collected, reaching a metre deep at its peak and the blue tennis courts were flooded with water 20cm above the playing surface.

Elsewhere on our campus, the basement of Centennial Building, the Junior School Hall and our Professional Centre were all flooded. Most of the damage was caused by ground water (black water) which meant the clean-up process became more complicated.

We were, however, very fortunate that most of the teaching spaces were unaffected, and we were able to begin classes without a hitch, albeit a week late.

THE CLEAN-UP PROCESS WAS A LEARNING CURVE The first clean-up process happened over the Auckland Anniversary long weekend.

There was much work to be done and we were extremely lucky to have

significantly flooded and has incurred a large insurance cost to remediate, the School was operational by 7 February and our students only needed to work remotely for a few days. We appreciate that not all schools were so fortunate.

Unfortunately, the second storm reflooded many of the same areas and we were back to square one. Again, a massive clean-up began, led by our properties team, and involving many staff and community volunteers with a ‘bring your own broom’ working bee at the School. After a lot of hard work, by 7 February the campus was ready for staff and students. Due to the floods we had to relocate some facilities, the Professional Centre, Uniform Shop and Archive, to other parts of the School. This displaced around 25 staff for the majority of Term 1 while their work areas were gutted and remodelled.

• Understanding ground water flow and planning for any future events

Melissa Brady, our property manager, explains: "In flooded areas we were extremely busy ripping up wet carpet and isolating power, and the Council instructed that the walls were also to be ripped out up to 800mm high if they had been contaminated by ground water. All carpets and furniture items that were touched by the black water were disposed of appropriately and framing was left exposed to dry out with fans and dehumidifiers.

“As the School is a live environment, the team worked long hours, with many constraints, but 90% of the remediation work was completed by the end of Term 1.”

AN EYE ON SUSTAINABILITY From an environmental perspective, it has been heart wrenching to see so much carpet, Gib Board and equipment needing to be sent to skips and ultimately landfill. During this process we worked with Green Gorilla – an organisation known for its sustainable practices and sponsor of the Green Star rating system. They worked relentlessly to go through our skip waste and more accurately assess what needed to go to landfill to help us minimise the impact on the environment.

WHAT WE LEARNT ALONG THE WAY We were relatively fortunate compared to some other Auckland schools, homes and businesses. While our campus was

We have engaged with the council and civil engineers to look at addressing the water coming into the School from council roads and other areas. We have also met with Dilworth to discuss drainage and stormwater flow from their campus.

LEADING

contractors respond immediately to help us with cleaning debris from our drains, draining flooded areas, sanitising artificial turfs, sucking water from flooring, sanitising carpets and checking all electrical equipment for safety.

Car park

• Current changes to our campus We are working with engineers to remodel the landscape to protect certain areas from future flooding events and create overland flow paths to channel water into run-off areas and water gardens, in much the same way that sand bags operate, but on a permanent basis.

• Current changes inside our buildings To lessen the extent of any future flood remediation, we have opted for polished concrete floors and mats as opposed to carpets in floodprone areas. We have also invested in furniture that will be less impacted by water damage, such as desks and storage units that have metal legs.

Furthermore, we have raised electrical equipment off the floor in case of future flooding.

RESILIENCE IN CHANGING TIMES Similar to our COVID experience, we found that our students, teachers and community were highly resilient during this unprecedented event, and during the short time we needed to move to remote learning, our students and teachers quickly pivoted.

Shrewsbury and cafeteria courtyard.

Tennis courts

We are grateful to our property team who have worked relentlessly to get the campus back into shape, and everyone for their patience as we remediated damage. We were also very fortunate that nothing ‘irreplaceable’ like our historical Dio archive records were lost in this flood. Our thoughts are with those who were less fortunate.

Melissa Brady, Property Manager DIO TODAY

15

L E A R N IN G

CONTINUING DIO’S RECORD OF

high achievement Leaving aside a wet and disruptive start to the academic year, 2023 is setting out to be the most ‘normal’ year since 2019. It is great not to be forever on tenterhooks that Microsoft Teams [UC] might need to be dusted off for online learning at any minute! In 2021, because of the significant disruption, NZQA awarded the Unexpected Event Grades (UEG). This meant that meant all students qualified for grades derived from their school exams. Dio girls took up that challenge and were well served, like all students in New Zealand, by that system.

2022 was another year of high achievement for Diocesan students across NCEA, Scholarship and International Baccalaureate, with a number of awards for outstanding and top scholars.

What is pleasing is that Diocesan results continue to place us as one of the highest performing schools in the country (the top schools are all girls’ schools) and every year more than 90% of Diocesan NCEA candidates have their certificates endorsed with Merit and Excellence.

Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School

Nina Fisher, Alex Graney and Lilly Lang the Academic Prefect and her deputies

2022 Examination results NCEA Dio continued its delivery of excellent NCEA results, with high levels of Excellence and Merit endorsement across all levels and well above national averages. Pleasingly, 98% of Diocesan’s Level 3 students achieved University Entrance.

Scholarship Students at Diocesan School for Girls have again gained exceptional results in 16

DIO TODAY

New Zealand’s Scholarship examinations, with joint NCEA dux Amie Cummack given an Outstanding Scholar Award for her overall results.

BA/BSc there this year. Amie was also presented the Board Scholarship of $5000 as the top Diocesan Scholarship student in 2022.

Amie achieved Scholarship in three subjects: English (2021), physics and chemistry – and two Outstanding results in biology and classical studies.

She was also awarded a Top Achievers’ Scholarship for the University of Auckland. She is studying a conjoint

In total, Dio students were awarded 43 Scholarships in 2022, with five of those achieving an Outstanding result. The Scholarships were spread across faculties and reflected outstanding achievements across the broad spectrum of subjects.

All six of Katherine Woods’ classical

LEARNING Amie and Anneke Cummack

Erica Hu 2022 IB Dux

“We are very proud of the continued success of our students.

The results are a real reflection of the dedication of the staff, and the mahi of the girls, during three extraordinary years of challenge and disruption as they worked both online and within the school environment.

“The results also speak to the value of a single-sex education, with girls at single-sex schools achieving markedly higher results than equivalent students in co-educational schools.”

Heather McRae, Principal

studies students who sat the examination were awarded Scholarships, while the history department gained nine.

In addition, both the health and physical education students who entered gained Scholarships, along with all three of the food technology students. For the second year running, Toni Carter had three students awarded photography Scholarships.

Students studying Chinese, Spanish and Japanese also achieved Scholarship success.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Diocesan achieved excellent results for the IB Diploma. Diocesan Top Scholar was IB Dux Erica Hu with 42 points out of a possible 45. She was also named a Top Scholar in New Zealand, where graduates must achieve a score of at least 40 points from their final exams. She is preparing to move to study at the University of California, San Diego in September where she will be studying human biology, planning a career in the medical field.

Scholars’ Awards The function to honour the Scholars of 2022 was held in the Performing Arts Centre on 17 May. We have held this function in the theatre since we outgrew the Hall as a venue, and now with a more relaxed function of nibbles, speeches and presentations and coffee and dessert to finish, we can accommodate all the award winners and as many of their families who wish to attend. It seems a very long time since this event was held in the much smaller School House Dining Room!

Alexandra Graney the Academic Prefect for 2023 welcomed all the students and their families and spoke about the 2023 prefects’ focus of Bridging the Gap. This means connecting two things together or building a bridge to intertwine different aspects of our School that may not have been connected before, like our different year groups, councils and values. Alexandra also extended the metaphor to the bridge needed to navigate the ‘now’ (the last two years of high school) and the ‘next’ (probably a tertiary pathway). She identified that some gaps will require a small step while others will take a massive leap.

DIO TODAY

17

She said: “As we are standing on this rickety swing bridge between our present and future, all we need to do is look around us and we will find that there are other ways to cross this gorge, other options available to us. And if we find that the bridge we decided to make our way across when we first left school is not working out, it is never too late to turn around, walk back to the edge of the cliff and choose another way across.

Nothing is ever set in stone.”

Rohanna Sharma with her parents Rohineet and Surangi

“We’re exceptionally proud of the results that our students have achieved through their hard work and dedication in the face of another disruptive year.

It’s particularly rewarding to see the spread of Scholarships across all areas of the curriculum. Both our students and staff have showed incredible commitment throughout what has been a challenging past three years for those involved in learning and teaching.”

Principal Heather McRae and guest speaker Sheryl Tan

Edith Li with her parents Leo and Rui

Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School

Alexandra’s message would have resonated with the guest speaker Sheryl Tan. When she left Dio, Sheryl went on to study Biomedical Science at the University of Auckland, and in 2015 graduated with a PhD for her work investigating the loss of the sense of smell in Parkinson’s disease. She then took up a position in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. While the work and the lifestyle were exhilarating, Sheryl also had a watershed moment when she realised that while she loved the science and the extraordinary resources she could access, she missed working for a community and making her research count for something other than publications. She came home and has since worked on mechanisms for neuroprotection in spinal cord injury.

By reducing the extent and spread of damage following an injury, it is possible to pave the way for other therapies to work better. Sheryl is also developing a model of concussion to understand the cellular changes after a knock to the head. She is on the team developing developing New Zealand’s first medical device for long-term implantation in the brain, which will significantly improve the management of paediatric hydrocephalus.

Sheryl finished by challenging the students to remember that a Dio education will leave them with a sense of duty; a calling to use their incredible education and their talents to help make this world a better place. She said: “This is how I define ‘Ut Serviamus’; it has been my guiding principle as I’ve navigated my way through my career.

I challenge each and every one of you to define what ‘Ut Serviamus’ means to you and embody it as much as you can.

You’ll always do your best work when you stick to your values unconditionally.”

18

DIO TODAY

Year 11 Silver Scholars Awards are awarded to Level 1 NCEA students with a grade average of 90 or more across all subjects.

Sydney Bell Danielle Callander Alice Christie Eva Cope Jamie Cottrell Lia David Jessica Druskovich Alexandra Fletcher Harriet Fletcher Amelia Frear Alison Fu Anno Fukutake Zijun Gao Rachael Griffiths Anaïs Hamilton Katherine Handley Charlotte Hannah Sophia Hardie Harriet Hope Vanessa Huang Sophia Jackson Sophie Jamison Olivia Judd Kanishka Kapadia Lucy Kilgour Indigo Kirk Sheryl Lam Gillian Le Michelle Lee Edith Li Annika Lin Amelia McIntosh Elinor Millar Rita Price Olive Reynolds Rohanna Sharma Amy Shennan Anya Stephan Dora Sun Sophie Tierney Zara Tucker May Wang Hannah Wellington Maya Willis Danielle Wong Zoe Wong Imogen Worrall Natasha Wu Selina Yang Catarina Young Amanda Yu Rose Yuan

Year 12 Silver Scholars Awards are awarded to Level 2 NCEA students with a grade average of 90 or more across all subjects.

LEARNING

SCHOLARS’ AWARDS

Billie Frecker Netten Year 12 Gilded Scholar Awards. Students receiving their second award receive a Gilded Scholar Award.

Annabelle Baigent Arya Blacker Lucy Blanchard Christina Cai Maisie Cavanagh Lauren Chee Charlotte Elliott Nina Fisher Isobel Fletcher Danielle Foster Alexandra Graney Emma Herrick Tessa Hickin Rebecca Hounsell Maia Hunter Lucy Irwin Sienna Kirk Simonie Lam Juliet Nasrabadi Lucy Nevill Aimee Schnuriger Alice Sharpe Sophie Shuttleworth Samantha Smith Margot Sullivan Jenna Veal Pascale Vincent Alex Wackrow Jessica Wang Victoria Wright Candice Yuan

Lucy Kilgour and her family

Annika Lin with her parents Henry and Vivian and sister Jessica

Danielle Foster and her parents Philippa and Michael

GOLD AWARDS Unfortunately, none of the three Gold Award winners was able to attend the Scholar’s Awards function this year. They are: Sunny Zhang Erica Hu Amie Cummack Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School DIO TODAY

19

Representing Dio at the IB Conference were (left to right): Margaret van Meeuwen, Susan Marriott, Nicole Lewis, Sue Cattell, Heather McRae, Karen Lile and Michelle Nicholl.

IB CONFERENCE As life has returned to ‘normal’ post COVID, the world has again opened up for international travel. This meant that in March a big team of Dio staff were able to attend the International Baccalaureate Asia Pacific Regional Conference, the first one in some time.

20

DIO TODAY

Diocesan will soon be accredited as a full IB school. For many years we have had the Diploma Programme (DP and offered to Years 12 and 13) and the Primary Years Programme (PYP and delivered by the Junior School). We are part way through implementing the Middle Years Programme, or MYP, which is for Years 7-10. In the past couple of years, the delivery of the PYP and the DP at Diocesan has been reviewed by the IB, and both received glowing reports on the programmes. This year we will be seeking authorisation to implement the MYP. Dio teachers are well ready for this, as the Years 7, 8 and 9 cohorts are currently being taught under this framework as a candidate school.

The team that travelled to the conference in Adelaide represented all three of these programmes: the three coordinators (Nicole Lewis, Michelle Nicholl and Susan Marriott) the two Heads of School (Sue Cattell and Margaret van Meeuwen) Heather McRae (Principal) and Karen Lile (the Director of Curriculum). Karen’s position is a new one at Dio, designed to have oversight of the two pathways we offer: the New Zealand Curriculum and the NCEA qualifications and the three IB programmes. She is particularly tasked with looking at the transition points (Year 6 into Year 7 and Year 10 into Years 11 and beyond). Karen came to Dio as MYP cover for Michelle’s parental leave in 2022, and her experience in the

LEARNING

IB and in the international environment has been extremely valuable to us.

The conference itself was well run, featured several high-profile keynote speakers and offered several smaller, more interactive sessions covering all aspects of the programmes, from teaching perspectives to leadership and governance in schools. More than anything it was a fabulous opportunity to reconnect with fellow IB educators from all over the Asia Pacific region.

The theme for this year was education for an inclusive future and the keynote speakers gave inspirational talks for us all to reflect on in our own context.

Susan Marriott attended a session called Getting the most out of our DP students: A look at the factors behind student performance in DP schools in Australia facilitated by Corin Bone and Simon Turk, from Glenunga International HS in Adelaide. They conducted research across 68 IBDP schools around Australia to see what contributed most to success in the programmes. While Diocesan’s Diploma students score well – our average subject scores, average total scores and percentage of students achieving 40+ points consistently exceed world averages – it is interesting to note the key success indicators according to this research.

The biggest impact on success, probably unsurprisingly, was literacy and numeracy skills. This was judged as more impactful than the size of the class or the number of years the programme had been running in a school.

Of significance, and a strength of the IBDP, is that for students for whom English is not their first or best language, success in the programme is not compromised. The IB insists that as long as English language output does not hinder a student’s ability to demonstrate conceptual understanding in internal and external assessment, marks will be awarded and linguistic inconsistencies will not be penalised (in groups other than ‘Language’ and ‘Language Acquisition’). This

research would support this claim and certainly endorses the IB’s international awareness and desire for students in the programme to ‘become inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people… who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.’ (IB Mission Statement) Like the New Zealand context, the IBO is always reviewing its programmes to enhance learning for the thousands of young people worldwide who are in IB schools. Michelle Nicholl attended a session presented by Nat Erbes, the Senior Curriculum Manager, Middle Years Programme (MYP) titled Enhancing the MYP.

“Students listen and learn when their diversity is respected. We can create schoolwide wellbeing by supporting and building a connected community in which the key needs of every member of the community are met in an equitable way.”

The goal is to better prepare learners, empower educators more and support schools in the implementation of their MYP programme. During the session, Erbes gave a behind-thescenes overview of the aims, timeline and informing research for Enhancing the MYP. The IB is heading into the development phase after exploration and research phases, which included a multi-year collaborative review and extensive research about the impact of MYP: Next Chapter. Whilst these changes are not predicted to take place until 2026, the session provided an insight into the evidenced-based nature of the IB programmes.

Karen Lile reports on Jane Jarvis from Flinders University who delved into what it really means to effectively teach academically diverse learners in an inclusive school. She reminded us that genuine daily engagement is needed to make education work for everyone. So, what might that look like?

Students listen and learn when their diversity is respected. We can create schoolwide wellbeing by “supporting and building a connected community in which the key needs of every member of the community are met in an equitable way”. The IB learner profile of open-mindedness is the key to creating a sense of belonging and connectedness in the classroom and school environment. In fact, all the learner profile attributes contribute to creating the classroom, school and home environments that support this.

Within the MYP curriculum, currently in Years 7-9, students are exposed to these in several ways, and these are becoming more and more visible as we roll out the MYP curriculum across the Junior High School.

Michael McQueen, an Australian award-winning speaker and trend forecaster, was the final keynote speaker. He discussed how we respond as educators to the future trends, particularly when it came to technological innovations. ChatGPT, and in fact all AI, will impact the way we educate our students for their future professions, some of which we cannot even imagine right now! He believes the rise of virtual reality and the metaverse can bring learning to life. Embracing innovations can be a gift if harnessed well. As educators connected to a global network, we will be curious to see how these develop and look forward to embracing them within our own school environment in the future.

The conference overall was an experience of face-to-face engagement after so many years of Zoom sessions and online training. There is nothing like the personal touch to create a buzz to take back home to school!

DIO TODAY

21

NICK Y

KIM SIG

VA N

NE L

D N UY SAND YG IB BS

ROHA

N

D’ S UZ O

A

NEW TEACHERS

BRING REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE The newcomers to Diocesan’s teaching staff bring a diverse breadth of global and industry experience. They include a trainee priest, a children’s book writer, an accountant, an International Baccalaureate specialist and a Finland native.

Principal Heather McRae says the new teaching staff will further enrich Diocesan’s offering: “Their extensive international experience and diverse backgrounds bring a real-world view to their teaching, which we hope will help inspire and guide students towards fulfilling careers.”

Experience from the Far North to the Middle East Sandy Gibbs started her career teaching mathematics, physical education and

22

DIO TODAY

NG

to Warsaw when she started at the American School as a maths and PE teacher in 2019.

LU O

At Dio, she teaches health, PE, and sport and exercise science to a range of year groups.

O RT H SW D A

AND RE W

W

“I’ve developed my teaching practices and understanding of learners from teaching students of more than 80 nationalities in the UK, Europe and the Middle East,” she says. “I hope to be able to engage my students with activities I’ve had success with overseas, and to engage them in a fun and memorable educational experience.”

KALI H

AE

N A G

health at Kaitaia College in the Far North.

During her OE, she taught at London’s prestigious Green School for Girls and won the Jack Petchey Award for Inspirational Teacher of the Year in 2016.

She then moved to Cairo and the Hayah International Academy where she became immersed in the International Baccalaureate curriculum and philosophy. Sandy carried that interest

Commercial experience gives students a real-life view

and communicate these concepts effectively.

“I’m excited to incorporate realworld examples and practical case studies into my teaching, making it more relevant and engaging for my students.”

Author and playwright drawn to New Zealand Watching the movie Whale Rider convinced Rohan D’Souza that he wanted to visit New Zealand.

“When I came here, I fell in love with its natural beauty and decided to make it my home,” says Rohan, who has been a teacher for the past six years and began his working life training for the priesthood in India.

Dio’s new Head of Accounting, Chong Luo, is a native of China’s Jiangxi Province but has called New Zealand home for the past eight years.

In 2017, he moved to New Zealand and began teaching English at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, then religious education at Rosmini College before joining Dio as a religious education teacher.

After a decade working across the civil aviation, logistics, shipping and ship-building industries in finance and HR, Chong opted for a career change. He completed his master’s in accounting at Victoria University in 2018 and began teaching accounting at Otahuhu College, where the students’ diversity and rich cultural backgrounds convinced him his career change was the right decision.

Rohan says his upbringing has helped shape his teaching methods and what he can offer his students.

“Having spent many years in a commercial environment, I yearned for a role that could provide a more meaningful and satisfying experience while allowing me to make a positive impact,” he says.

“Teaching seemed the perfect fit as it offered the opportunity to shape and inspire the next generation, and connect with the local community, which I find both fulfilling and rewarding.”

Chong’s business experience has given him the confidence and skills to analyse complex business cases

LEARNING

CH O

“I was born and raised in India, which is multi-ethnic, multilingual and incredibly diverse. I grew up and worked in an environment where we would celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Gurunanak Jayanti and Hannukah and all other festivals together. I hope to use these lived experiences to enhance my teaching practice at Dio.” Rohan has published two novels, a series of short stories and several plays.

Drawing from the Swedish education system A thirst for travel and languages propelled Auckland-based English teacher Nicky van Duyn to travel to Sweden 12 years ago. There she experienced the renowned Nordic teaching system and gained valuable international experience. Planning to go for a year or two, Nicky ended up staying for nearly 10. She became head of the English department at one of Sweden’s top international schools DIO TODAY

23

and had three children (with her husband, Dio English teacher Kim Signell).

Teacher trainee brings heavyweight science and research expertise

Whānau-based approach key for Mātauranga Māori teacher trainee

“My international experience has given me a greater understanding of English and how it’s learnt as a second language,” says Nicky. “This helps particularly when teaching bi-lingual students.

Former senior research scientist Andrew Wadsworth has joined Diocesan’s cohort of trainees under the Auckland Schools’ Teacher Training Programme (ASTTP), which embeds student teachers full-time in their chosen school.

Kali Haenga (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānaua-Apanui, Ngai Tahu) has also joined Diocesan’s cohort of trainees under the ASTTP. Previously, trainees needed an undergraduate degree, but the programme now welcomes nongraduates in certain areas, including Mātauranga Māori and technology.

“I’ve adapted some of the techniques and styles of the Swedish education system to work in my New Zealand classroom.”

Nicky has written and illustrated a series of children’s books in both English and Swedish for her family and friends.

A win-win for Nordic father of three English teacher Kim Signell grew up in the southwestern archipelago of Finland – a small group of picturesque islands in the Baltic Sea. After gaining master’s degrees in education and English linguistics, Kim began teaching English as a second language at Raoul Wallenberg Secondary School in Uppsala, near Stockholm.

“It’s a tiny school with about 250 students,” he says. “I really enjoyed working with teenagers – they always surprise you with new points of view.

That age group can be challenging, but they also give you so much energy and warmth. If you show them you care, they’ll respond in kind.

“This feels like a win-win situation, where I can both impart my outlook on teaching and learn new things from my colleagues here at Diocesan.”

Kim hopes to share his love for literature with his students. He laments the fact that children don’t read as much today, but says Diocesan is doing a fantastic job promoting reading to the students.

“Even though I miss my own family, I know we made the right decision in moving to New Zealand,” he says. “I feel incredibly welcome, and I couldn’t be happier that my children get to grow up with their whānau here in Auckland.”

24

DIO TODAY

The programme provides real-world experience and mentoring, plus financial support in the form of fee costs and a stipend.

For the past six years, Andrew has been a senior research scientist at Douglas Pharmaceuticals, New Zealand’s largest privately owned pharmaceutical and healthcare company.

As a member of the new product development team, he worked on drug treatments for bowel and cervical cancer, acne, depression, and wound healing.

Prior to that, he had spent 10 years at the University of Auckland working closely with Dio alumna Distinguished Professor Dame Margaret Brimble. Under her mentoring, Andrew completed a PhD in organic chemistry before becoming a research fellow.

After nearly 20 years in the academic, research and scientific areas, he decided it was time to add some variety and creativity to his work. The year-long training programme lets him move between year groups and observe teaching methods and academic delivery as he works in Dio’s science department.

Andrew believes his scientific and research background will bring a realworld view to his teaching and hopes it will inspire students towards a career in those areas.

“Having worked in both academia and industry, I’ve got a good idea of where science can take you,” he says. “I can give students a real-world understanding of how science research works in New Zealand.”

Kali is assisting with te reo Māori in Dio’s Te Whare Huia faculty, where she’s been a support person for the past two years, and a kapa haka tutor at Dio since 2019.

Te Whare Huia embraces Māori knowledge, including the teaching of te reo Māori, kapa haka and Mātauranga Māori, and launched as a faculty in 2021.

Gisborne-born Kali grew up learning te reo Māori and tikanga and attended her kōhanga reo from age three. She studied School Certificate (NCEA Level 1) te reo Māori at Te Kura Reo Rua o Waikirikiri and took several core subjects in te reo Māori at Lytton High School in Gisborne.

After working in banking in Auckland, she headed overseas with jobs in London, Tonga and Australia. During a career break to have her children, Kali held various community roles, including at the Ōtara Budgeting Service.

Diocesan te reo Māori teacher Ashley Pihema convinced Kali to apply for a position assisting with the Reo Māori programme and kapa haka at Diocesan.

She says Kali’s deep-rooted knowledge is a treasured asset to the faculty.

“Becoming a qualified teacher means her knowledge will be recognised, valued and accredited by the system,” she says.

Dio’s hāpori (community-based) approach is a key part of Kali’s passion for her role.

“The whole school community has been so supportive,” she says. “I'm grateful to be a part of Te Whare Huia as it grows and develops as a place of learning and becomes embedded as tikanga of Dio.”

LEARNING

AN INVIGORATING

educational experience For three weeks of January 2023, I was fortunate to participate in the Inge Woolf Memorial Seminar at Yad Vashem – The International School for Holocaust Studies in Israel. I was one of 26 teachers from across New Zealand and a wide range of disciplines to receive the scholarship through the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand.

knowledge of their experience is carried forward. This idea of ‘bearing witness, remembering and acting’ is an important tool for our teaching of the Holocaust in Year 10 social studies and Year 13 history, but it is also highly relevant to the implementation of the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum, which began in social studies in 2022.

The seminar consisted of a series of intensive lectures, tutorials and workshops with leading Holocaust academics from around the world on Jewish life, the history of Jewish experience, as well as the Holocaust. We worked together as educators sharing ideas about how we would apply this knowledge in our classrooms to make the topic more relevant to New Zealand students and planning to use the interesting resources we were exposed to including music, art and film. Central to our learning was the philosophy of ‘taking students safely in, safely out’ of this contested and confronting topic in order teach it as effectively and sensitively as possible.

We enjoyed a number of learning experiences outside of the classroom, visiting the vast number of significant religious sites in Jerusalem, travelling to the mountain fortress of Masada, the caves of Qumran and visiting a kibbutz in Lohamei HaGeta’ot. Climbing Mt Zion at daybreak was special to me because of its holy significance for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and therefore its demonstration of the cultural diversity in Jerusalem. We had a lot of fun too. We floated in the Dead Sea, ate memorable food in the Arab Shouk, shopped in the Armenian Quarter and spent a day at the beach in Tel Aviv.

For me, the most poignant part of this professional learning opportunity was listening to the testimony of Holocaust survivors in class and spending time with them in their homes. In one of these sessions, I asked 88-year-old Rena Quint, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, what I should tell my students when they ask me why they should learn about the Holocaust. She said that her mother and father are still alive when they are remembered and

“This was an incredible experience personally. The past three years have been particularly challenging as we have worked to do our best for our students despite the changes caused by the pandemic. I was feeling quite depleted. I am grateful to the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand and the Diocesan Heritage Foundation for this opportunity. The learning and the fun I had in such a fascinating country have reinvigorated me.”

Lisa Mave

The opportunity to experience this seminar with a group of impressive New Zealand educators was a significant part of this journey. We will continue to engage in professional learning together for the next three years and have established networks to share resources and ideas on the teaching of the Holocaust, as well as other contexts and about education in general. The learning I took from them will be as beneficial in my classroom and in my role as Faculty Head Social Sciences, as what I experienced in our formal studies.

I am very grateful to the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand and its founders for this opportunity and to the Dio Heritage Foundation fund, which also made it possible for me to participate in this incredible experience.

Lisa Mave, HOF Social Sciences DIO TODAY

25

ICT Director Rob McCrae looks at some of the issues around ChatGPT The dawning of the Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Age In February this year, EdTech New Zealand and the AI Forum of New Zealand co-hosted a webinar on Artificial Intelligence and the Impact on Education.

The speakers included Prof Ian Watson (professor of AI and machine learning from the University of Auckland), Frances Valintine (CEO academyEX), and Dr Kevin Bell (EdD, Amazon Web Services). While the speakers 26

DIO TODAY

expressed an element of concern around the potential for cheating in traditional academic assessments, they all agreed that this technology “will disrupt education, no question”.

Professor Watson added that ChatGPT was already capable of passing written examinations at the level he teaches.

“Not brilliantly, but good enough for a solid pass, and of course it will only get better with time. We haven’t seen anything yet.”

What is ChatGPT and this new realm of ‘generative AI’?

On 30 November 2022, a company called Open AI introduced ChatGPT.

By February 2023 it is claimed that

LEARNING

ChatGPT had over 100 million active users. Putting that into perspective, it took TikTok nine months to achieve this rate of growth, and Instagram took over two years. ChatGPT is simply the fastest growing application ever created.

teachers and students when it comes to teaching and learning. Here are a few examples of how some of the current generative tools can be used.

used to support the student and create more time for the student to invest in critical and creative thinking as they learn.

How might a teacher use AI tools?

•T o create a course or unit plan. A task

Are there issues in using these tools?

In simple terms, ChatGPT is a chatbot that has been optimised for conversational dialogue. The ChatGPT interface is designed to simulate a human conversation, and this simple interface is a key reason why it is so successful. You can ask it any question, and anyone can use it.

often taking hours to complete, can now be done within seconds.

•H aving developed the course plan, it’s then a simple task to ask AI to develop a series of lesson plans to achieve the overall course goals.

•H ave ChatGPT generate a series of student activities to meet the objectives of each lesson. These could be lesson starters, sentence starters, quiz questions (and answers!). Again, all generated within seconds.

•U se a slide generating AI (such as Tome) to automatically generate a series of slides to introduce a topic or concept.

Absolutely. Apart from the well documented cases of using AI to produce essays for an assessment, there are issues around accuracy, credibility, authenticity, and data security. All schools will have policies and processes in place to handle incidents where authenticity of student work is questioned. But accuracy and credibility require an individual to problem solve. Generative AI ‘makes stuff up’. It is likely to be highly accurate, but it is known to suffer from glitches where it just gets things wrong, or makes up new ‘facts’.

Accept what you get at your own risk is the moral of the story.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) journey AI isn’t necessarily new. Back in the 1940s scientists and mathematicians like Alan Turing, John McCarthy and others were exploring AI. Turing, of course, was famous for his role in helping break the Enigma code during the Second World War. Back then computers were rare.

Personal computers hadn’t been invented, and they wouldn’t be for another 20 to 30 years. Since then, it’s taken until now for three key technologies to develop and merge to create the watershed moment we are now seeing in 2023. Those three technologies have been: the advances in personal computer capability, the advances in cloud computing capability and the availability of massive datasets to train the AI algorithms. All three of these components have undergone technological ‘exponential’ growth in recent times.

It is no surprise that where exponential growth and development factors are both at play, we can see massive advancements in a short period of time. And that’s what is happening with AI. We believe that ChatGPT is a breakthrough moment that will spawn a raft of new AI-powered products in the next few years.

How might AI tools be used in schools?

AI has some immediate benefits to both

These are all largely routine tasks that need to be developed by teachers.

By using AI tools a teacher could save hours of time that could be spent further enhancing the learning environment, or interacting directly with students.

How might a student use AI tools?

•T o summarise a lengthy text, document or even a video – students can ask AI to pick out the key points in bullet format.

•R eword a description of a complex topic so the explanation is easier to understand.

•C reate individual learning paths for the student based on their strengths and areas for development.

•P rovide writing prompts or idea starters for any project or course.

•M ake learning materials more accessible by providing real-time translation or simplification.

•B e a personal tutor to help develop skills in certain areas.

•P rovide students with feedback on their work.

Again, these are more planning and administrative tasks where AI can be

Any invention can be used for good or bad. The same with AI. The measure of a society is how it responds to major change.

Conclusion In an interview 20 years ago, Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett Packard) commented: “Do you recall the IT revolution that the business press has been pushing for the last 25 years? Sorry to tell you this, but that was just the beginning. The last 25 years have just been about the forging and sharpening of the real tools of the IT revolution. What you’ve witnessed over the past 25 years was just the end of the beginning, the warm-up act.”

Now, 20 years after that interview, we have AI available to everyone. Its general adoption and use may be interspersed with setbacks, in a similar way to how the dot.com bubble of 1998 became the dot.com bust of 2002.

While ChatGPT may be having its ‘Netscape moment’ right now, don’t be surprised if other far more powerful tools arrive just as quickly.

DIO TODAY

27

WOMEN IN BUSINESS On Thursday 23 March we held the fourth Women in Business event in the Performing Arts Centre. We were very lucky to hear from Dio alumnae Hilary West-Reeve, Olivia Bollen and Julia Matthews, as well as Tania Bui. They each discussed their experience in business and shared some advice for entrepreneurship and business management. The point of this event is to really connect students with the belief that ‘they can do it too’. By seeing people who have been in their shoes before – taking risks, following their passion and finding success (in whatever form that may take), they are able to see that starting and operating a business is real and achievable for them too.

Hilary West-Reeve (Peer Year 1993) is the Executive Director, Chief Sustainability Officer and External Communications Manager at Phoenix Metalman Recycling (www. phoenixmetal.co.nz). She discussed the importance of ‘legacy’ in business decision making and developed the idea that what we do now has impact far into the future.

Olivia Bollen (Peer Year 2013) is the Co-founder of Taken Care Of (www. takencareof.co.nz). She spoke of the importance of nurturing connections and deepening relationships throughout supply and distribution. Olivia spoke with honesty about making decisions that would have a lasting impact on her business.

Julia Matthews (Peer Year 2004) is the founder and CEO of Two Islands (www. twoislandsco.com). She talked about how the pathway through business is not always a straight line and that 28

DIO TODAY

Pictured from left to right: Margaret van Meeuwen, Hilary West-Reeve, Julia Matthews, Tania Bui and Olivia Bollen.

learning from the things you do is important for growth and success.

Tania Bui has had a varied and successful career through business and marketing and is now the Head of Marketing at Craigs Investment Partners (www.craigsip.com). She discussed the importance of being yourself, sharing your passion and supporting women along the way. The messages from each speaker so closely aligned, and it was wonderful to hear about their challenges and paths to success.

Above: Young Enterprise students selling their wares.

The event is also established as an opportunity for students in our Year 13 Business and Young Enterprise programme, who are establishing their own company this year, to showcase their products and validate their ideas to those who attended this speaker event. It is an important stage in their business journey to discuss their products within a market setting and take away some learnings to either pivot

or persist with their business ideas. It also gives them an opportunity to get out of the classroom to see where their product and brand sits, and to talk with their potential customers. With 23 Young Enterprise businesses operating at Diocesan in 2023, the programme is continuing to provide support and success for our female entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

However, the EOTC Week lead-up was not without drama! The cyclone and floods caused some nervous moments for Craig Morrison, the newly appointed EOTC Coordinator. He was hampered by water and flooding in the basement of Centennial Building, having to then get wet tents dry before camp (usually this is a post-camp task!) and with some of the Regional Parks remaining closed some activities required a last-minute change. So it was with much relief that we saw students packed and ready to board buses when the first camps left on the Sunday morning.

Our EOTC programme at Diocesan is designed to ensure all students have a range of experiences over their time at Dio that will challenge them physically, mentally and spiritually. It provides opportunities for our students to explore new skills and activities as well as develop strong social connections with peers and develop a stronger sense of community in their cohorts. After considerable time spent in isolation during formative years – without sleepovers and play dates – the importance of this aspect is not to be underestimated. Each year level programme has specific key competencies, values, aims and learning objectives that relate to the girls’ learning in school and reflect their current abilities and understandings about the world around them.

LEARNING

EOTC 2023

After coming so close in 2021 (when we went into lockdown the day before camps were due to depart Auckland) and being cancelled due to the number of COVID cases in 2022, everyone was excited at the prospect of all seven year levels being able to experience EOTC Week again this year. The students in Years 7-9 had been given a taster with the rescheduled camps in November 2022 but for the senior students this rite of passage and highlight was much anticipated.

At Year 7 camp at Finlay Park the key focus is ‘Getting to know and having a go’ so students participate in a wide range of fun outdoor sports and activities, developing communication skills and being challenged in inclusive

DIO TODAY

29

teams so that they also make a lot of new friends.

A real highlight for students this year were the water slides where many students reported that having done the slides, they realised that they are braver than they thought. Having the opportunity to take some risks they also know that new things – even those activities involving mud and dirt – can be fun ways to develop resilience. One student reported in the feedback survey that camp taught her that she can now “switch off my nerves button and get the most out of everything”.

The Year 8 camp week was split between Whangateau (where students camped in tents for two nights) and school-based activities. The challenge is for students to step outside their comfort zone; snorkelling, orienteering, sailing, and the Round the Mountain walk were all opportunities to build confidence, life skills and character while fulfilling some of the William Pike Challenge requirements.

This year, the Year 9 camp was held at the Dilworth rural campus in Mangatāwhiri, formerly Hotel du Vin. Students rotated through a range of activities and between cabins, tents and glamping tents over the week. They were able to experience mountain biking, Waka Ama, kayaking and bushcraft, to name a few of the activities. The biggest challenge for many, however, was the Adrenalin Forest where many students pushed through to conquer a fear of heights on different levels. Students and staff were amazed by how the support of others and encouragement enabled them to go higher and further than they ever thought they could. For many, this sense of achievement was the absolute highlight of the camp. Zahrraa Kamdar in Year 9 wrote: “Tackling the Adrenaline Forest, I went up really high and persevered through the course. I was super proud of myself at the end.”

For Year 10 students the theme is ‘the long road ahead’ and students are guided towards recognising their own potential to make a difference in others’ lives. Although based in Auckland for the week, many identified with the long road ahead quite literally as they did 30

DIO TODAY

not realise just how long the Coast to Coast walk or the hike to the summit of Rangitoto were actually going to be!

This reportedly gave them a greater understanding of the significance of meeting challenges with an open mind and perseverance. During the week at Action Matakana and kayaking to Brown’s Island the students honed important teamwork skills.

“The importance of resilience, perseverance, teamwork and having a positive attitude are just some of the significant learnings our students take away from EOTC Week”

Thanks to a generous donation, students also developed a better understanding of financial literacy. As Mr Holmes stated by way of introduction to the sessions: “Understanding the basics of the financial world should encourage you to understand the importance of working to earn, your responsibilities and rights as an employee, the power of saving and compound interest, spending money wisely, how to invest and grow your wealth, the necessity of taxation for a community to develop and how being in control of all of that puts you in your own driver’s seat – relying on others to understand your financial position puts you in the passenger seat!”

Year 12s were also school-based and this year students engaged in a wide range of activities. They were able to learn to surf, tried boxing and made flat-pack furniture to donate to women and children coming out of refuge to re-establish their lives. They also learned important skills to keep themselves and others safe by completing a First Aid course, learning self-defence and working through the well-established Loves Me Not programme, designed to teach young women how to keep relationships safe.

A bucket list camp is certainly the Year 11 Camp at Tongariro. The crossing is always a highlight and this year the Year 11s were able to share the experience

with Year 13s due to a shortage of guides familiar with Mt Ruapehu. This was a ‘silver lining’ outcome of the current labour shortages as the Year 13s missed their Tongariro camp in 2021. Students in Year 11 canoed on the Whanganui River and also walked a lesser-known track carrying buckets of gravel to rejuvenate the track as part of giving back to the area.

Madison Coleman articulated the challenges the week provided: “I pushed myself with all the activities, especially the crossing, and I ignored the voice in my head that said I couldn’t do it. I also grew an appreciation for talking with my friends a lot more, as I didn’t get to see most of them during activities.”

Students are often nervous about sharing a room with people they don’t know, but this is such an important way we can ensure they widen their networks and find shared interests with a whole new set of students. Paris Foster in Year 11 wrote in the feedback survey that she was “really happy we got randomised cabin and activity groups as it gave me the opportunity to meet people I wouldn’t normally talk to.

I now have a whole group of new friends all because of camp.”

As well as the physical demands of the crossing and white-water rafting, Year 13 spend time reflecting on a solo night at camp. The students can initially find this confronting without friends or phone to occupy their time. It is in itself a challenge, but Tessa Hickin summed up the whole experience when she wrote: “I took away some valuable personal learnings about myself from my reflection time in my solo, but I also took away the confidence that I can push myself physically and mentally to overcome challenges and not shy away.”

The importance of resilience, perseverance, teamwork and having a positive attitude are just some of the significant learnings our students take away from EOTC Week along with the creation of life-long memories and personal satisfaction in conquering many challenges. Many thanks go to Craig Morrison and Holly Ffowcs Williams and also the year level deans for their organisation and execution of such a successful week.

LEARNING Year 13

Year 13

Year 7

Year 8

Year 10

Year 7 Year 10

Year 12

Year 9

DIO TODAY

31

Ready to go!

“One of my favourite activities was going to the luau on our first night. It was such a good ending to a very tedious day travelling from Auckland, and it finally sank in that we were really in Hawaii! I loved the different dancers from each culture, my favourite being the traditional Hawaiian dancers.”

Emma Maxwell

32

DIO TODAY

Finally, after a long time in lockdown and then waiting for the world to return to some sort of travel normality, this year we were ready to add overseas trips back into our school calendar.

The opportunity to learn outside the classroom, in any form, greatly enhances the learning experience for students.

But there is something quite special about being able to get on a plane and travel as part of a group to experience an overseas adventure. As well as the learning related to curriculum, other less tangible benefits are gained.

Students develop greater independence being away from home, with increased responsibility for spending money, getting laundry done and keeping track of belongings. Students forge strong bonds with both peers and staff as

the shared experiences bring them closer together. Developing a greater understanding of other cultures and ways of life enhances internationalmindedness and fosters a sense of our place in the world as well as what we can do to contribute positively to it.

For years, one of the regular trips on the Diocesan calendar has been the biennial trip to Hawaii where senior geography and tourism students learn about how the process of tourism development operates. As part of an externally examined standard for Level 3 NCEA and optional paper for the IB course,

LEARNING Posing at a movie set

students must be able to analyse how the elements interact to create such a significant aspect of their economy, how it creates spatial and temporal patterns and impacts people, culture and the environment. In April this year, we were able to get back to our case study environment to see first-hand how tourism development has changed since last visiting pre-COVID in 2019, a record year when 10 million tourists visited Hawaii.

There have been some significant changes to travel in general and a lot of changes in Hawaii as a result of an altered tourism industry. But even the slow customs line and our suitcases being left at Honolulu airport after not making our flight to the Big Island could not dampen anyone’s spirits. Scheduled to go to a luau (celebratory feast with cultural entertainment) that first night, we decided we would all go and buy floral Hawaiian souvenir dresses to wear. A quick trip to the legendary ABC store in Kona-Kailua, and everyone was colourfully dressed for our first evening at a luau overlooking Kamakahonu Bay. It was so much fun that it may even become a trip tradition!

The students experienced many different attractions and activities, learning a lot about Hawaiian history, Hawaii’s impressive volcanic landscape and how tourism has developed and changed over time, including its current changes due to the pandemic.

Inside the Kawaiaha’o Church in Downtown Honolulu

Setting off canoeing

Enjoying the surf at one of Hawaii’s iconic beaches.

Exploring volcanic landscapes.

This is also an historic cultural site.

Needless to say, there were loads of stories to tell on our return to Auckland and adventures to treasure for years to come. ‘Mahalo’ for allowing us to return to overseas trips and share this real-life learning with the students.

Dian Fisher and Jacinda Andrews, teachers-in-charge DIO TODAY

33

The sustainability experience Prior to the Hawaii trip, we planted 200 kanuka seedlings on a farm at Kawakawa Bay to help offset our carbon emission from the flight. To fully offset, around 1600 trees would need to be planted! We could not do that due to time and money, but felt that 200 was a good start.

The original idea was student-led and came from Āniva Clarke; the other students going on the trip were also keen to support the idea. She asked if there was a way to offset the carbon emissions by planting trees. I had a farm contact and we got sponsorship for them from a local business (The Reinstatement Specialists) and partly from the School.

The idea also linked well with the School’s annual plan to become more sustainable.

We also wanted to do a sustainable activity when we were in Hawaii. Several organisations offer tourists the chance to ‘pay it forward’ to give back to the environment while visiting the islands.

“All of us jumped into the kalo ponds – this was super fun, even though squishy and messy! We helped the ranch by spending an hour and a half harvesting the crops. We first pulled half of the crop, before moving on to some weeding and then finally some mud stomping, which was personally my favourite bit. To finish the experience, we rinsed off in a small pond with fish and frogs.

Overall, this was an awesome day and made us all understand a little more about Hawaiian culture and their sustainability practices.”

Hattie Miles

At Kualoa Ranch, one of their tours is the Malama Experience. Malama ‘Aina is a Hawaiian phrase that means caring for and honouring the land. After taking many school trips to Hawaii, this was personally my favourite activity as it meant we could all think about the impact we have as tourists, and to do some good. Our Malama experience involved us harvesting kalo (taro). We learnt how important kalo is to the Hawaiian people 34

DIO TODAY

for sustenance and also for its links to Hawaiian cultural identity. Everyone happily got into the muddy kalo ponds and began the harvesting. Our guide Piko reported how impressed she was with our teamwork and how quickly and efficiently we harvested half a kalo pond.

Jacinda Andrews

The girls were fantastic planting on a slope in the Saturday heat and enjoyed a lunch put on for them by the farmer after the planting.

LEARNING

Ethics The Ethics Council has had a successful start to the year, beginning with our annual Soapbox event, which proved a great way to start some discourse about ethical issues around the School.

Sienna Kulatunga

A

dditionally, we are excited to be implementing a variety of events and initiatives as the year progresses and cannot wait to share these with students, staff and the Dio community.

Our Soapbox event was a fantastic success, and it was splendid to see so many students getting involved to ‘speak up and speak out’. In particular, the Junior High students showed enthusiastic interest and were brave in sharing their perspectives on a range of topics. We were so impressed with the variety of subjects, ranging from the use of AI and Chat GPT to feminism and our relationship with education and tests, all of which involve topical conversations surrounding them. As young women, it is so important that we not only have a safe platform to share ideas we care about, but also use those opportunities to share our voices and challenge ideas. We encourage all students to continue to get involved with Soapbox and make the most of it as an opportunity, as we think the benefit of developing a greater understanding of ethical issues that underpin events in our society is invaluable.

The strength and interest of Junior High students could be seen in 28 semi-finalists who competed for the few places in the final. The finalists in the Junior High competition were Cici Wang (7NE), Hazel Mulligan (8CW), Alice Lott (9RO), Anya Taylor (10CO) and Emilia Young (10NE). Twelve Senior semifinalists competed, which is a disappointing number as it is so important that their views are heard. The finalists of the Senior School competition were Violet Tucker (11MI); Zara Tucker (12MI); Ella Millar (12 RO) who was unfortunately absent on the day, Bharathi Manikandan (13CO) and Sienna Kulatunga (13 CW). Congratulations to our 2023 winners, Anya Taylor and Sienna Kulatunga.

In keeping with our efforts to raise awareness about ethical issues, the Ethics Council is looking for ways to have students more involved with ethics. One initiative we have undertaken is writing a regular feature in the Dio On Campus (DOC) newsletter. Through this, we plan to highlight the ethical issues around students’ lives and give them questions to challenge

Anya Taylor

their views while enabling them to critically think about the moral implications behind events in our society. A clear example is the use of AI and who should be held accountable for it when it goes wrong; or for instance, whether we can consider AI-generated art ‘real’ art. In this way, we hope to facilitate more ethical discussion.

An awesome team of Year 11 students (Violet Tucker, Holly Bricklebank, Isobella Baggaley, Jess Web, Scarlett Kirk and Charlotte Johnston) participated in the International Middle School Ethics Olympiad final on 23 February. They had initially taken part in the online competition, which involved 300 teams, winning the North Island competition in 2022.

The team thus qualified for the final in which there were 40 qualifying teams from five participating countries – Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and Singapore. There were also 20 judges from across the globe.

The team wrote about their silver medal-winning experience: “The competition helped us understand what we stood DIO TODAY

35

for and the topics we were passionate about. It was also interesting to hear and appreciate others’ thoughts and ideas.

The competition was also a fantastic opportunity to meet students from around the world.

“Working as a team was also necessary. Beforehand, we made notes about each ethical case, making sure to recognise everyone’s points of view. Similarly, we had to make sure that everyone got an opportunity to speak up and share their ideas when competing. This teamwork was vital because we couldn’t talk over each other in the competition.

“Another aspect of the competition was the expert opinion of the judges, especially because many of them had participated in previous Ethics Olympiads. It was intriguing to hear their advice and views on ethical concepts after each round.

“We could not have achieved what we did without Ms Blumenfeld’s help and effort. She was so generous with her time and is very passionate about ethics. She taught us many ethical principles, showed us how to apply them in various situations, and challenged us to think outside the box.”

Students from Dio also competed in the Senior Ethics Olympiad that was held on 17 May. The Year 11 team mentioned in the above paragraph were placed second in the New Zealand competition and have been invited to the international final of the competition.

36

DIO TODAY

This term we held a Dio Thrift Sale in partnership with the Sustainability Council. The idea behind this venture was that students and staff donated a few items of good quality clothing that other students could then purchase for between three and five dollars. This initiative was designed to engage students in shopping ethically and buying second-hand, steering them away from ‘fast fashion’. All profits were donated to an environmental charity and the unsold clothing donated to the Anglican Trust for Women and Children.

We hope we can continue to ensure students see the importance of ethics and how ethical issues can be found in all aspects in our lives. The aim here is to provide students an opportunity to challenge their current thoughts and allow for critical thinking so that we can foster young women who are able to articulate and spark discussion about topical issues. In order to facilitate ethical thinking within the School, we have become one of the schools in Australasia that has a licence for the Ethics Olympiad competition. This will allow us to run our own face-to-face competitions and all teachers will have the programme available online. Subject-specific cases in science, technology, media, sport, for example, will enable teachers to integrate ethical cases/scenarios within their curriculum.

Lauren Chee, Ethics Prefect Maisie Cavanagh, Deputy Ethics Prefect Mackenzie Marlo, Deputy Ethics Prefect Nina Blumenfeld, Director of Ethics

LEARNING

JUNIOR SCHOOL

R A E C T I Y L LIVES

“The science of reading is a vast body of scientifically based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing. This research has been conducted over the last five decades across the world, and it is derived from thousands of studies conducted in multiple languages.”

Little Learners Love Literacy website 2023

Teachers and students alike embraced Book Character Day with enthusiasm on Wednesday 7 May!

DIO TODAY

37

‘Structured Literacy’ is a buzz term in the education world and at Dio this is no exception. We have recently implemented this research-based initiative and the results are already starting to show. Structured Literacy is an explicit and systematic way of teaching reading and all aspects of literacy. It focuses on phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge, giving children the skills they need to read, spell and write successfully.

It is a transformative approach to literacy instruction at Dio, fostering the foundational skills along with explicit instruction and addressing the diverse needs of learners, ensuring that all children learn to read, write and spell with confidence. It links the literacy skills of reading, spelling and handwriting from the beginning of their journey, and was developed from evidence-based

38

DIO TODAY

research and the science of reading. It is explicit and sequential and does not leave learning to read to chance.

We follow the Little Learners Love Literacy programme, which is based on the science of reading already mentioned. It is firmly grounded in research and evidence and studies consistently show its effectiveness in improving reading outcomes.

In equipping our girls with strong reading foundations, this approach empowers them with the skills they need for future success. We all know that reading is a fundamental lifelong essential skill, and our role is to ensure our girls have the skills they need.

As an International Baccalaureate school, our Primary Years Programme (PYP) is inquiry-based learning where

students are encouraged to ask questions, investigate, use critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Having a strong literacy base is essential for the development of these. The PYP is also transdisciplinary by nature, meaning that students explore curriculum areas and the links between them in varied contexts. Being able to read and write effectively through interrelated connections is important and the Structured Literacy approach fosters this.

We are excited to see the progress of our girls continue to develop and flourish.

Whaiwhia te kete mātauranga – fill the basket of knowledge.

Sue Cattell, Head of Junior School

Our Primary Years Programme is engaging, relevant and meaningful.

This international framework allows our girls to make strong connections across curriculum subjects and encourages them to develop skills such as creative design, future thinking, entrepreneurial intuition, problem-posing and problem-solving.

As part of their ‘How we organise ourselves’ unit, our Year 2 girls inquired into their responsibility as global citizens and the impact their actions have on communities. It was lovely to see the girls display the attributes of caring and balanced individuals during their learning.

Highlights of the unit were visiting the residents at Elizabeth Knox Home and Hospital to build friendships with them, and problem-solving to find solutions to combat pigeons in the playground.

As part of their ‘How we express ourselves’ unit, Year 4 inquired into how visual art plays a vital role in provoking thought and raising awareness.

Throughout the unit not only did the girls ignite their creativity, they also learnt about the different elements of art, ways the visual arts provoke thinking about social issues and how artists can make use of different media to connect with different audiences.

As part of their ‘How the world works’ unit, Year 6 inquired into their responsibilities as laitiaki and how we must innovate for future generations. In this science-focused unit, girls learnt about energy production and the impact renewable and nonrenewable energy sources have on our environment. Through key concepts, they explored how it works and how it is linked to other things. Some highlights included collaborative time in MakerSpace and carrying out future thinking for what our environments could look like and need.

Students were asked: “What is our responsibility as kaitiaki and why should we innovate for future generations?”

A kaitiaki is a person who is a guardian of the environment and the area/or

LEARNING

BRINGING LEARNING ALIVE THROUGH THE PYP “I liked looking at the statues and sculptures at the Botanical Gardens. The part I liked best was sketching the statues and sculptures and the flowers. I liked sketching the flowers because they were so beautiful.

I learned about how artists use colour to show people how they feel. Takashi Murakami is my favourite. He worked with famous musicians to make his art, and he likes to use flowers too. When I look at his pictures, I feel really happy because of all the bright colours.”

Luna Lee

place. It’s all about working together and being kind to the planet. We can make the world a better place by getting rid of non-renewable energy sources. It’s our responsibility to think of new ways to make the world more eco-friendly.

This will help make Earth a safe and healthy place for future generations. It’s our responsibility to be guardians of our planet and protect and care for it.

“What are your future thinking plans.

What do you think we need and why?”

We need sustainable housing! Housing that can cope with natural disasters, our population getting bigger and housing that is built from sustainable resources (eco-friendly materials like bamboo). We need to create communities with more green spaces, trees, plants, and gardens to improve air quality, absorb CO2 and attract lots of wildlife.

DIO TODAY

39

YEAR 5 GIRLS

‘Let it Go!’ IN FROZEN JR

40

DIO TODAY

LEARNING

Dio audiences were taken ‘For the first time in forever’ on a journey to Arendelle this term with the Year 5 girls letting go and putting on a magical performance of Frozen Jr. Disney’s Frozen is a well-known tale about strength, perseverance and family and the Year 5 cast showed those qualities to each other throughout the rehearsal process – right up to their stunning performances.

Special thanks to the incredible creative team led by Shelagh Thomson who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make

this production such a success for our Junior girls and the audiences. Special mention to Cathy Watkins who made all the characters come alive with her spectacular costumes and also Olwyn Davidson for the lighting and animation she added to the imaginative Year 5 digital scenes created by our girls.

Huge congratulations to the girls for creating such a fabulous performance for us all to enjoy at the beginning of the school year!

Mehernaz Pardiwalla, Junior School Performing Arts Coordinator

DIO TODAY

41

THE FOUNDATION CLASS

BEGINNING A LIFETIME LOVE OF LEARNING

It’s safe to say that no two days are ever the same in our classrooms. Here in Foundation Class we are guided

by Te Whāriki, the New Zealand National Curriculum and the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate. As we foster a love of learning, we explore the curriculum areas of literacy, mathematics, physical education, science, the arts, French and digital learning. These are integrated into an inquiry-based programme that will set them up for a successful future – inspiring children to have a love of learning from their first day is an important part of our curriculum.

own interests and abilities; they imagine, investigate and explore, developing memory skills, building vocabulary, extending their skills and knowledge, and learning how to develop relationships with adults and other children.

Our thoughtfully curated environment inspires discovery, wonder and engagement. We inspire the children and their whānau to grow through the Diocesan School values. Teachers support children to discover and further their

Dio values are strengthened through our connections with Reverend Sandy and weekly Chapel visits. “Reverend Sandy teaches us about God and Jesus. We sing Jesus loves me – that’s my favourite song!”

“In Foundation Class I can play with my friends and see my teachers – that makes me happy.”

42

DIO TODAY

We are so lucky to have so many wonderful specialist teachers who contribute to our programme. The girls are inspired to explore boldly, immersing themselves in French lessons, swimming class, music and dance and PowerPump.

Through the fostering of joy, wonder, fun and curiosity throughout our programme, children develop a love of learning.

Connections to the Junior and Senior Schools are made through our regular Year 13 visitors, story sharing with Year 6s and our walks and investigations of the campus. “When we walk around the School we go so far away we can’t see Foundation Class anymore! The big girls we see say hello to us – I’m going to be a big girl one day!”

LEARNING

WINTER

sports UPDATE

It’s been a busy start to our winter sports programme in the Junior School. Our girls are incredibly enthusiastic and the participation rates are very high.

Flippa Ball group shot with coaches in front

W

Y6 Amethysts Netball Team at St Johns

e are delighted that our girls choose to participate in team sports as it’s a great way to develop new skills, meet new friends and learn about teamwork and sportsmanship. The girls learn about commitment to their chosen sport, showing up and giving their best efforts.

They learn about bringing the best version of themselves, taking personal ownership for their contribution, supporting others, and being cooperative and resilient. We love seeing their confidence grow as they feel valued and learn to execute their new skills. The fun factor is high and there’s plenty of excitement and challenge to keep the girls engaged.

We have around 40 representative teams up and running in five competitive codes including basketball, hockey, flippa ball, futsal and netball. To service the programme we employ 70 coaches who facilitate trainings and games. Fifty-five of these coaches are senior students who give their time freely in service and leadership. Without them, we could not run our programme and they do provide a very special service. We love seeing the bonds grow between our younger and older students.

We are very lucky to have an incredibly supportive parent community here at the Dio Junior School. Apart from our external coach providers, this winter

season we are using 10 parent volunteer coaches in our netball and hockey codes. We also have around 40 parent volunteer team managers who support each week with communication about the game draw and player availability. Of course, we also know that many of our parents are there at games cheering and supporting their girls from the sidelines.

Apart from these winter codes we are also running training programmes for competitive artistic gymnastics and

both recreational and competitive rhythmic gymnastics, playball and taewkon-do. Our ski racing girls train independently.

We look forward to the coming winter months and seeing our girls in action on the courts, the turf, in the pool and the gymnasium.

Lucinda Batchelor

DIO TODAY

43

LIVING CHAPLAINCY

COMMUNITY Somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion and without having the words catch in our throats.

Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.

Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.

Arms to hold us when we falter.

A circle of healing.

A circle of friends.

Someplace where we can be free.

A poem by Starhawk

44

DIO TODAY

BEING COMMUNITY LOVING SELF

I love this poem and I love the way it describes community. I have a yearning to be part of the community that this poem speaks of. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think such a community exists. And the reason it doesn’t exist is because of, well, people.

The ideal of a community where everyone belongs and feels valued and loved and fully able to be free, to succeed and be celebrated, to fail and be held, is the kind of community Paul talked about in his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 12. In this chapter, Paul is reminding the church in

Rome that there is a place for everyone in the community – that there is no need for egos to complete with each other. We all we all have different gifts and it is in the richness of the combination of those varied gifts that life-giving community is to be found. Because of this, there is a level of responsibility on each individual person to share their specific gifts for the betterment of the community as a whole. There is a mystery that happens in true community that is about it being more than just the sum of the individual parts. Paul’s message to the church in Rome was that through Christ, through

Being community is hard, though. It is not something that just happens. It is something that requires commitment and effort. It takes time and it takes a willingness from the members of the community to be vulnerable. M Scott Peck wrote: “There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”

Parker J Palmer, the American writer, speaker, activist and founder of the Centre for Courage and Renewal, has much to say about being community.

He lived for many years at Pendle Hill, a community of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers. He says: “In community we bump up against each other – sometimes in ways that create magic and creative sparks fly but, sometimes, we bump up against each other in ways that are painful, hurtful and destructive. One of the things that makes community so hard is that much of how we react to others is actually about ourselves, not about them.

What we can’t love about ourselves, what we are ashamed of in ourselves will be projected onto others. When we are faced with someone we can’t stand, if we take a moment to reflect, we might realise that we are looking at a mirror of ourselves. The question of how to be community and how to live together in love is about how we deal with those things about ourselves that we don’t like or find difficult in order that we grow in our self-acceptance and self-love, which then transforms into love for others.

Love your neighbour as yourself is not a random statement – it is a deep insight into how we see ourselves and how we see the world.”

It is a life’s work, the journey to wholeness so that we don’t inflict our pain on each other. It is part of our human condition that even with the best will in the world, we are not perfect in our decisions and reactions and responses, we still hurt others, we react badly, speak harshly, and act out of selfishness and pride.

Over the past couple of years our student leaders have had a focus on selfcompassion, on cutting ourselves some slack, being gentle with ourselves and

showing ourselves the kindness and love that we would ordinarily show to others.

I think this is of critical importance to the growing of strong community.

I want to tell you about something wonderful that happened to me on my first day back at school. I went into the Professional Centre to check my pigeonhole and I found an envelope in it. A hand-addressed envelope, with a silver star sticker in the corner. I didn’t recognise the writing and I was quite excited to receive a card in the mail. So, I opened the envelope and took out the card – it had gardening implements and some new plants on the front. I opened it, and this some of what it says: “My darling Sandy, it has been a beautiful day here at this house by the sea. I have seen a lot of depth in you today and your sharing has been so open and honest. I am really proud of you and the person you are becoming. You shared deep insights today. You are doing well on becoming a whole person – you have shown a lot of integrity and you are open to so many people. You could try to be more like this with your family, maybe. Keep looking for the shoots of spring growth in your life – they will keep coming if you keep tending the soil.

Never forget that you are a truly beautiful person, beloved by God. May you be blessed, always. I love you.”

And when I had read it, I just burst out laughing and I felt so silly because I wrote this card to myself. I have to tell you that this has happened to me before, which made me find it even funnier. Over the past few years, I have been going to a series of retreats and the final activity each time is to write a letter to yourself that the retreat leader then posts to you a couple of months later. I never remember that I have written them and I always wonder who they are from when they appear in my pigeonhole. One good thing about my forgetting about them is that I don’t just look at them and think: “Oh that’s the letter I wrote to myself, I won’t bother opening it.” The card I received on Monday was an amazing gift on my first day back at work. I felt amazing and it was such an affirming thing to read to start the school year. I have to wonder why I don’t speak to myself like that all the time!

But, like so many of us, I have negative thought patterns that run through my

mind about myself. They cause cause me to feel insecure and to doubt my gifts and abilities. This doubt can make me feel threatened by others, and then I act in ways that are not in keeping with who I aspire to be.

LIVING

seeking to live the way Jesus taught, through loving our neighbour as ourself, transformation can be found.

So much of the foundation of how we relate to others is about how we relate to ourselves. Strong Christian community relies on a solid foundation of selfcompassion and self-love. Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

When we look at what binds us together as community here at Dio – the shared vision for outstanding education, the values of honesty, integrity, respectfulness, and empathy from our Strategic Direction document, and the aspirational statements in our Culture code, it is clear that we have the desire and intention to be community.

There is no point in being a community that has weak foundations that will fail as soon as a storm comes. We surely want our community to be solid and lasting, built on a strong foundation of love for God, love for self, and love for others. This is the kind of community that is going to endure when the storms hit, and that is going to bring out the best in every individual member.

To ensure that our foundations are solid requires commitment and effort. I challenge each one of us to demonstrate that commitment to this community and to put in the effort. Have a chat with yourself about where you are at this point in your life with the whole 'love your neighbour as you love yourself' thing and make a commitment to talking to yourself in a more gentle, generous and compassionate way. It can be transformational.

MUMS IN PRAYER

There is a small group of parents who meet regularly to enjoy fellowship and to pray for our School. This is a wonderful way to offer support to the School and to offer prayer for our whole Dio community. If you would like to be part of this group, please contact Anne Handley at anne.handley@xtra.co.nz or on 027 295 9079. Everyone is welcome.

DIO TODAY

45

PERFORMING ARTS We’ve had another crazy start to the year with severe weather events creating havoc and disrupting rehearsals, but our resilient performers remained undeterred. Many students have been involved in nationwide events, kicking off with the annual Shakespeare Festival, Rockquest, hip hop, NZCT Chamber Music and Big Sing regionals. We are thrilled with the results so far and look forward to more regional and national successes later in the year.

HIP HOP At the HHINZ national finals, the Dio MegaCrew excelled in the Junior Varsity division. The 35 students from Years 9-13 secured a spot at the World Champs in Phoenix, Arizona. Led by coach Ashley Medcalfe, with choreographers Caitlin Peetz and Shalom Teikamata, the team showcased a dynamic three-minute hip hop routine. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the live performance at the Hip Hop Championships marked a thrilling return for the dancers. These girls truly made Dio proud!

In May, two amazing Dio dance teams performed at the National Dance Challenge competition. The MegaCrew finished in sixth place with high gold. The Junior Jazz Troupe, choreographed by dance leaders Cleo Foster and Becky Christie, competed for the first time, achieving fourth place and high gold.

Over King’s Birthday weekend, all our hip hop crews participated in the Project Youth Dance competition in Mt Maunganui. The girls performed magnificently and were the only school represented, competing against high-profile dance studios from across the country.

46

DIO TODAY

LIVING

Rockband programmes

Our contemporary music programme is thriving this year with Jam Factory and Year 9 music bands profiling their talents in a series of lunchtime concerts. Year 9 music classes also enjoyed Stage Presence workshops with Madam Parker and Willis Wetere from Vibe City, learning microphone technique and drumming skills.

Holly Fendall (Year 11) and Eleanor Tenbensel (Year 13) excelled in the Ignite Programme, participating in workshops with industry professionals, and gaining access to state-of-the-art studios. “We loved being part of Ignite at Big Fan Studios and have had so many cool opportunities,

from tours around Spark Arena and Roundhead Studios to workshops with Joel Little (Lorde, Taylor Swift) and Josh Fountain (Benee).”

Three senior bands from Dio competed at Smokefree Rockquest. Dio was the only all-girls school to have multiple bands in the competition. Next Exit (Year 11), Mirage (Year 12), and Lift! (Year 13) showcased funky original compositions. Lift! again reached the regional finals, after previous success in both the Auckland finals and nationals.

This competition provides unique opportunities for aspiring young songwriters to launch their music careers.

DIO TODAY

47

Shakespeare FESTIVAL

Top right: Rachael Griffiths and Amelia McIntosh in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream Top left: Amanda Yu design photo Above: Amanda Yu - design drawing.

48

DIO TODAY

The annual Auckland Central Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand Festival returned as a live event after two years of online entries.

Over a weekend in March, the drama department under TIC Christina Davies took a team of students to Avondale College to participate. There were some stand-out performances, including Ella Bosselmann as Juliet, and Lizzie Peters directing a 15-minute scene from Much Ado About Nothing. Dio again won the 5-minute category starring Year 12 students Rachael Griffiths and Amelia McIntosh with a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Amanda Yu again demonstrated her skill and creativity, securing an impressive second place in the SGCNZ Dawn Sanders Shakespeare Costume Design competition. During the awards ceremony, her costume design took the spotlight, elegantly showcased on stage

During King’s Birthday weekend, the students travelled to Wellington to represent Dio in the national final.

Rachael and Amelia delivered a delightful performance and, along with Year 11 student Katie Lott, participated in a range of workshops led by practitioners from renowned institutions like Toi Whakaari, Takirua Productions, and UK Theatre company Gabrielle Moleta.

Katie Lott (Year 11) 1st for Static Image

Dio students also received awards for their achievements in the following categories: Victoria Baker (Year 10) 1st for Video Title Card Keira Gentry (Year 10) 2nd for Video Title Card

Millie Knight (Year 10) Highly Commended for Static Image Sophie Walter (Year 10) Commended for Static Image Anya Taylor (Year 10) Commended for Costume Design

Samoan Sasa Choreographed by Callum Sefo

At Last Choreographed by Zoe Visvanathan

LIVING

Technologic Choreographed by Matilda Abernethy, Becky Christie, Cleo Foster and Grace Wellington

Support for independence Choreographed by Louise Coulthard, Amber Elliot and Tyler Gleye

NIGHT OF

El Tango de Roxanne Choreographed by Hana Tipa

DANCE

The 2023 Night of Dance, ‘Ready to Roll’, showcased talented choreographers and dancers inspired by the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s RTR countdown. With over 400 performers in two shows, the programme featured a diverse range of acts, from first-time junior students to esteemed young dancers. The choreography let each dancer shine, with seamless group formations and impressive unity. The evening began with a Kapa Haka performance followed by various dance styles including Bollywood, Chinese, Pasifika, jazz, lyrical, hip hop and contemporary. Dio’s dance programme continues to thrive, thanks to our dedicated facilitators.

Love Shack Choreographed by Becky Christie and Cleo Foster (Dance Captains) Dance by Junior Jazz Troupe

Home Choreographed by Dan Cooper

Tiko Mega Crew choreographed by Ashley Metcalf and Shalom Teikamata

DIO TODAY

49

Legally Blonde

50

DIO TODAY

LIVING

DIO/DILWORTH SENIOR PRODUCTION After the cancellation of all productions last year, we were delighted to start 2023 with this joint venture. Legally Blonde is the transformational story of Elle Woods as she tackles stereotypes, snobbery and scandal in pursuit of her dreams.

Talented Ella Cochrane starred as Elle, supported by the brilliant Lizzie Peters as Paulette. As the story unfolded, they were joined by the outstanding talents of Amanda Yu as Brooke and Pascale Vincent as the sophisticated Vivienne.

Director Cherie Moore commented on the commitment of the cast and team – Lachlan Craig as musical director, Verity Burgess who led the choreography, Olwyn Davidson as lighting designer and Cathy Watkins on costumes.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this hugely successful production and thanks for staying calm during those stressful weeks when we feared we’d have to cancel. What a team!

DIO TODAY

51

CULTURAL EVENING Dio’s Culture Night, organised by the Culture Council and Year 13 IB students, celebrated the School’s diversity on May 25. The event featured captivating performances, including Kapa Haka, Pasifika group, Desi dancers, Chinese dance group, K-pop group, classical Chinese singing, and a Gu Zheng instrumental duo. Attendees also enjoyed homemade cultural delicacies prepared by the students. The evening fostered inclusion, representation and meaningful connections, reflecting the organisers’ vision. This inaugural annual event marked the beginning of an exciting tradition.

52

DIO TODAY

LIVING DIO TODAY

53

SPORT

HOUSE COMPETITIONS

Athletics Day The 2023 Dio Athletic Sports was held on 24 February at the AUT Millennium Stadium, due to the unavailability of Mt Smart.

There were some remarkable records broken: Sina-Maria Su’a broke all previous Junior, Intermediate and Senior shot put and discus records, beating the Senior discus record by six metres and the Senior shot put record by four metres – an amazing achievement for a Year 7 student!

Jacqui Nasrabadi broke her own Intermediate 200m record with a time of 26.53. Hannah McManus broke her 2022 Junior javelin record with a throw of 25.73m, and set a new 800m record of 2:24:29.

Indie Williams shaved four seconds off the Junior 1500m record with a time of 5:01:53, and Grace Dearlove broke the Year 7 1500m record last set in 1998 with a new time of 5:44:43.

Back row, left to right – Celest Vo, Indie Williams, Frankie Dodunski, Abby Welsh, Grace Jeromson, Hannah Tse, Emily Peng, Henrietta Yarrell-Stevenson, Sienna Webby, Chanelle Huang Front row – Anna Lepua, Eva Allan, Alex Campion, Sophia Ng

SWIMMING SPORTS On Friday 10 February the annual Swimming Sports took place at the Aquatic Centre. The day saw fantastic house spirit and some incredible competitive swimming.

Alex Campion broke the Open 100m breaststroke (1:08:12) and 200m Senior individual medley (1:06:37) records previously held by Lucy McKinnon (2020) and Gina Galloway (2018). Eva Allan and Alex Campion were crowned 2023 champions of champions. Congratulations to

54

DIO TODAY

everyone who participated.

Year 7: 1st Emily Peng, 2nd Rosie Karpik, 3rd Sienna Webby Year 8: 1st Chanelle Huang, 2nd= Sophia Ng and Henrietta YarrellStevenson Junior: 1st Frankie Dodunski, 2nd Indie Williams, 3rd Hannah Tse Intermediate: 1st Grace Jeromson, 2nd Abby Welsh, 3rd Celest Vo Senior: 1st= Eva Allan and Alex Campion, 3rd Anna Lepua

Overall year-level winners Year 7: 1st Grace Dearlove, 2nd= Phoebe Kelt and Sina-Maria Su’a Year 8: 1st Luisa Haines, 2nd Charlotte Waite, 3rd Anna Lynskey Junior: 1st Hannah McManus, 2nd Indie Williams, 3rd Emily Keene Intermediate: 1st Jacqui Nasrabadi, 2nd Amy Shennan, 3rd Sophia Haines Senior: 1st Chloe Luo, 2nd BellaRose Mountfort, 3rd Brooke Chandler 100m sprint: Bella-Rose Mountfort House Cup: 1st Selwyn, 2nd Mitchelson, 3rd Cowie Congratulations to our new record holders, place winners, participants and house leaders for making this such a memorable event. Huge thanks to the staff who helped out on the day.

LIVING Bella Rose Mountfort and Chloe Luo

Sina-Maria Su'a

Hannah McManus

Jacqui Nasrabadi

Grace Dearlove

Overall winners Selwyn House

Luisa Haines

DIO TODAY

55

CROSS COUNTRY

On Friday 28 April, we held our annual Cross Country for all Year 7-13 students.

The runners gave it their all over the 3km course and a steep climb up Mt St John, revelling in the atmosphere as they sprinted down the drive-through to the finish line.

Intermediate: 2nd Sophia Haines (10ED), 1st Amy Shennan (12MI), 3rd Sophie Pearce (10CW)

Senior: 1st Imogen Worrall (12MP), 3rd Sienna Payne (12MP), absent from photo 2nd Jessica Finnegan (13CW)

Year 8: 2nd Grace Larsen (8NE), 1st Luisa Haines (8ED), 3rd Chloe Ulmer (8MI)

Tug-o-war A tug-o-war was held during Term 2 ‘Spirit Week’ with participants scoring house points. The results were: 1st Cowie, 2nd Edwards, 3rd Cochrane, 4th Neligan.

56

DIO TODAY

Year 7: 3rd Noomi Riley (7CW), 2nd Phoebe Kelt (7ED),1st Grace Dearlove (7RO)

Junior: 2nd Indie Williams (9MP),1st Hannah McManus (10MI), 3rd Maddie Worrall (9MP)

LIVING

SUMMER SPORTS ROUND-UP National, North Island and regional successes

Water Polo The Premier water polo team continued Dio’s traditional successes in the pool during Term 1, winning silver at the Auckland Championships and National Championships and gold at the North Island Championships. Jenna Veal won tournament ‘Most Valuable Player’ in the North Island competition. Dio was the only school with two teams competing at this level. The Senior A team won the plate for the tournament (the highest they could finish), beating many premier teams.

Senior B also won silver in the Division 2 Water Polo Nationals, losing the final to Carmel College’s premier team in a penalty shootout. Senior C won silver in the Division 23 North Island competition. Overall, it was a very successful season. Thanks to Gabby Olopau for her hard work.

Premier team

Christine Lewis, Premier team manager, won the Caltex Good Sport award at prizegiving. The Premier girls nominated Christine for her 15-plus years of service to Diocesan water polo. Christine is an outstanding manager who cares about our students and programme.

Premier water polo: Tyler Butler, Isabella Dalton, Georgia Daly, Ava Darbyshire, Billie Frecker-Netten, Lucy Gilleece, Sophia Jackson, Louise Masefield, Kasey McDowall, Ellie Millard, Jenna Veal and Vita Yarrell-Stevenson

Senior A team

FUTSAL Our Junior A and Senior A futsal teams competed in the NZSS Futsal Tournament in Wellington in late March.

Junior A finished the round-robin in third place, and just missed out on a bronze medal in a hard-fought battle against Wellington Girls’ College. Holly Webster and Hannah McManus won joint ‘Golden Boot’ in the Junior competition, each scoring 11 goals during the tournament.

Dio Senior A was the only team undefeated in pool play, with just eight goals scored against them all tournament.

They beat Mt Albert Grammar School in the semi-final,

moving into the final against Wellington East Girls’ College, where they played skilfully but lost in the final minute, finishing the tournament with a silver medal.

Futsal Junior A: Sian Christie, Sophie Haines, Mia Hanton, Hannah McManus, Skye Murdoch, Mia Platt, Chloe Pollock, Abigail van der Meijden, Holly Webster Futsal Senior A: Kate Beagley, Bella Cranefield, Eliza East, Gemma Kelly, Indigo Kirk, Sienna Kirk, Meg McKinnon, Sydney Sparks, Anya Stephan

DIO TODAY

57

ROWING The Diocesan rowing Maadi Squad spent Summer Tournament Week at Lake Karāpiro for the 2023 Maadi Regatta (New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Championships) and came away with some great results.

With a total of six ‘A’ finals and seven ‘B’ finals, our whole squad raced through the week. The U-17 Coxed Quadruple Sculls with Rosie Wiseman, Eva Cope, Alexandra Fletcher, Imogen Worrall and coxed by Stella Benton won bronze – their first Maadi medal.

squad made 10 ‘A’ finals and five ‘B’ finals over the first couple of days of racing.

They followed up their performances on finals day, winning six medals across three age groups – one of the highlights being our two Novice Eight boats placing second and third and sharing the podium with each other!

Our medallists were: Silver: U-18 Novice Coxed Eight, U-17 Coxed Eight and U-18 Novice Coxed Four Bronze: U-18 Novice Coxed Eight, U-17 Coxed Quadruple Sculls and U-15 Coxed Eight

Dio rowing also had great results at the Head of the Harbour regatta at Lake Pupuke, winning the Top Girls’ School trophy for the third year in a row. We had a number of medals across Division 1 and Division 2.

Gold: U-18 Novice Eight, U-17 Coxed Quadruple Sculls, U-16 Coxed Eight, Imogen Worrall – U-17 Single Sculls, U-15 Octuple Sculls and U-17 Coxed Eight Silver: U-16 Coxed Four Bronze: U-17 Coxed Four, U-16 Coxed Quadruple Sculls, U-16 Coxed Four and U-18 Novice Coxed Four

In the North Island Championships, the

Athletics

Jennian Homes New Zealand Track and Field Championship Five Dio students represented Auckland at the 2023 New Zealand Track and Field Championships in early March, competing to win national titles and achieving some amazing results. This was the first year the U-16 category was included in the event.

Amy Shennan (W18): 6th – 800m,

bronze – 4x400 relay Jacqui Nasrabadi (W16): gold – long jump and 4x100 relay (record), bronze – triple jump and 200m, 5th – 100m Hannah McManus (W16): silver – 4x400 relay, 7th – 800m, 9th – 400m Indie Williams (W16): 4th – 1500m Scarlett Gwin (W16): gold – 4x400 relay, 9th – 800m, 10th – 1500m, 11th – high jump

North Island Athletics Championships Again representing Auckland, the Dio athletes performed incredibly well at the North Island Championships.

Amy Shennan ran in the gold-winning Auckland 4x100m relay team and the 4x400m relay that placed second.

Hannah McManus’s outstanding season form continued – she won silver in the Junior javelin and the

individual 800m and was in the third-placed Auckland relay team.

Indie Williams won gold in the 1500m at her first North Island event. Jacqui Nasrabadi won the Intermediate long jump, came second in the 100m, and ran in the gold-winning 4x100m relay team.

Auckland Championships Athletics Day On 5 April, 10 Dio athletes competed in the Auckland Championships at the Trusts Stadium and achieved some amazing results.

Amy Shennan: bronze – 400m, silver – 4x400m Chloe Luo: silver – triple jump, bronze – long jump Hannah McManus: gold – 800m and

58

DIO TODAY

javelin, silver – 4x400m Indie Williams: gold – 3000m and 1500m, silver – 4x400m Maddie Worrall: silver – 3000m Scarlett Gwin: silver – 4x400m, bronze – 800m Sina-Maria Su’a: gold – shot put and discus

ORIENTEERING

From 21 – 23 April, 16 Dio orienteers competed at the North Island Secondary Schools’ Orienteering Championships, working hard under complex conditions.

Year 7 and 8 Girls’ Standard: Maya Zurflueh – 2nd Junior Girls: Lucy Forman, Mila Walsh, Cerys Findlow – 2nd

FENCING

On 26 March, the first of the secondary schools’ fencing competitions, the Northern Secondary Schools’ Individual Competition, was held at Te Pai Event Centre at Waitakere.

Dio had four fencers in the competition: Wendy Xie, Vanessa Huang, Joanna Chen and Alice Sharpe (code captain).

Alice won silver at this competition, and Vanessa Huang won bronze at the Auckland Championships.

Equestrian Our equestrian team competed in the Secondary School Show Jumping Pegasus Cup at Takapoto Estate, with the following results: Coco Fougere: 3rd – 1m 2 phase Victoria Boot: 2nd – 1.10m accumulator Georgie Wilson: 3rd – Best-performed thoroughbred

LIVING

TAEKWONDO

On Saturday 1 April, the Diocesan taekwondo team joined competitors from the Oceania region at the prestigious Auckland Open International Martial Arts Championships.

Grace Umezaki (Yr 7): gold – taekwondo patterns Cody Young (Yr 7): silver – patterns Nina Jensen (Yr 7): silver – patterns and tricking, bronze – special technique Selena Liu (Yr 5): gold – kickboxing, bronze – patterns and taekwondo sparring

Sailing

Triathlon

Nineteen Diocesan students competed at the Triathlon Championships at Maraetai Beach.

They included two teams and six individuals in the U-14 age group and two teams and an individual in the U-16s. The girls represented Dio impeccably and achieved some excellent results.

U-14: Indie Williams – 1st individual; Maddie Worrall – 2nd individual; Henrietta Yarrell Stevenson, Mika James and Luisa Haines – 2nd team; Charli Manks, Pippa Forman and Amara Prasad – 3rd team U-16: Molly Sherrard – 4th individual; Celest Vo, Lily James and Sophia Haines – 1st team; Sienna Hirst, Abby Welsh and Sophie O’Leary – 2nd team

AQUATHON CHAMPIONSHIPS On the morning of 22 March, 40 Dio students competed at the Aquathon Championships at St Kentigern College. Diocesan was a clear stand-out school for performance and attendance, with some amazing results throughout the age groups.

Junior: Indie Williams – 1st individual; Frankie Dodunski and Hannah McManus – 1st team Senior: Alex Campion and Amy Stafford – 1st team

The Auckland Team Sailing Regionals were held over two action-packed days at the end of March amidst the picturesque surroundings of the Royal Akarana Yacht Club. The 21 boats entered made it the largest so far, and Dio won five out of eight races on day one. On day two, the determined Dio team reached the final against Westlake Girls’, a repeat of last year’s epic showdown. Dio took silver, with Westlake winning the best-of-three race final.

SWIMMING

Diocesan swimmers competed at the Champion of Champions on 20 March, with these results: Frankie Dodunski: silver – 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle, bronze – 50m backstroke (13 & under) Grace Jeromson: silver – 50m breaststroke (14-15 girls) Eva Allan (code captain): silver – 50m freestyle (16-18 girls) Alex Campion: silver – 50m breaststroke (16-18 girls) Dio relay team (Alex, Grace, Eva and Frankie): silver – medley relay.

DIO TODAY

59

HELPING OUR TOP SPORTSWOMEN

ACHIEVE THEIR DREAMS

Each year, several Dio students will enjoy the privilege and challenge of representing New Zealand in their chosen sport. On the following pages, you can read about the recent experiences of our students competing internationally. To compete on the world stage, they need to manage their demanding training schedules and absences from class, and Dio is happy to support this representative leave.

Who knows – in a few years we might be cheering them on at a World Cup or a Commonwealth or Olympics Games.

Students who need to attend a lengthy training camp prior to leaving for their competitions, can enrol in te Kura (the Correspondence School) and the whole team at the camp works together on similar assessments. For others, Diocesan modifies their programme, creating a personalised timeline of topics and assessments. Because many of these students are eyeing up scholarships and places at overseas universities, it’s important to be able to maintain their grade point averages across their senior years. Diocesan staff are happy to support these athletes to achieve their dreams.

Dio pride is strong as two of our high-performing athletes prepare to showcase their skills on the global stage, representing New Zealand in artistic swimming and rock climbing.

60

DIO TODAY

Isabelle Hitchen

Artistic swimmer has her sights set on the Olympics Year 13 student Isabelle Hitchen has been selected for the Aquaferns Artistic Swimming team to represent New Zealand in July at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. This is also a qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympics and the team will be working hard to secure the Oceania spot.

Isabelle (17) was a gymnast from a young age, but switched sports and took up artistic swimming after she suffered a bad break to her arm when she was 10. She started competing on the national stage aged 12 and, a year later, was selected for the national Pikopiko Development Squad before being elevated to the Koru Squad for junior athletes.

The squad hasn’t been able to compete overseas for the past two years due to the COVID pandemic, but they have trained together under the tutelage of renowned choreographer and two-time Olympic champion Reem Abdalazem.

Isabelle will attend intensive training camps in Auckland and Tauranga before she leaves for Japan in early July, with the team training up to eight hours a day. They’ll be focusing on qualifying for three events at the world champs in Japan: Tech Team, Free Team and Acrobatic Team.

“Training and competing at this level has set me up for life,” Isabelle says. “It’s taught me how to perform well under pressure, and to trust myself and my teammates.

“We all work incredibly hard to make our performances look effortless, but there’s a lot of hard work and commitment behind it.”

Scaling global heights Now 16, Rebecca Hounsell was just four years old when her father Grant first took her to an indoor climbing centre in Panmure. She quickly became hooked. At the time, Becca ’s mother was seriously ill and Grant says climbing became a refuge for Becca as the family

Becca is currently the New Zealand open female lead climbing champion, which involves climbing tall faces. She was recently selected to represent New Zealand at the World Climbing Championships in Koper, Slovenia in September. There, she’ll compete against around 200 international competitors, watched by a livestream audience of several hundred thousand.

She says climbing is all about problemsolving and working out the most strategic routes to climb.

“It’s about pushing yourself to your own limits,” explains Becca. “There are so many different types of climbing – it’s not all about scaling tall faces. You also get to see some pretty amazing scenery.

“I’m really looking forward to competing at the World Champs and gaining some international recognition and experience.”

As part of her training, Becca spent several weeks climbing at Milford Sound with climbers from around the country.

tournament in the US in April this year.

Thirty-two teams took part in the U-19 section of the tournament, including sides from Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Mexico and the US. Despite putting on a strong showing, the New Zealand team didn’t make it through to the knockout stage. The players ended their weeklong trip to the US with a 5-0 friendly win against an Arizona rep side, with Olivia scoring one of the goals.

“It was surreal to be wearing a fern on my shirt and playing with such talented girls,” says Olivia. “I soaked up every moment on the field and took on board all the feedback from the coaches.

“It was initially difficult to adapt to the direct mentality of the overseas teams, but we put up a good fight against them and came away with some good results.”

Olivia is also a keen tennis, netball and futsal player and hopes to study sports science and health and nutrition at university next year.

Hopwood-Craig (12RO) and Greer Newman (13CW) who have been selected for the New Zealand U-19 Underwater Hockey Squad for 2023.

LIVING

navigated the challenges of terminal illness and subsequent loss. “Becca really blossomed as a climber,” says Grant. “It became her safe place psychologically.”

The squad is working towards the World Championships, which are being held in Turkey in 2024 and a trans-Tasman tournament in September. Well done to Rachael, Mila and Greer on this amazing achievement. We wish you the best of luck in your preparations!

Water polo Congratulations to Georgia Daly and Jenna Veal who have been selected into the New Zealand U-20 Water Polo Squad. They join old girls Sophie Gardiner, Sophie Shorter-Robinson, Bella Broadmore and Isabelle Jackson, and National U-17 Squad Dio reps Lia David, Lucy Gilleece, Sophia Jackson, Louise Masefield, Ellie Millard, Leni Webster and Vita Yarrell-Stevenson.

Underwater hockey Congratulations to three of our Dio students, Rachael Griffiths (12SE), Mila

She continued her 2023 form in style at the recent National Indoor Bouldering Series in Dunedin, where she picked up another gold to add to her collection.

Becca also has her eye on competing at the Oceania Championships later this year, which could lead to possible Olympic selection. We are looking forward to following Rebecca’s progress throughout the year.

Congratulations to our other national reps

Soccer’s in her blood Olivia Erskine (17) has been playing soccer since she was five and credits her soccer-mad father with stoking her interest in the game. Olivia, an attacking mid-fielder, was the youngest player to be selected for the School’s First XI at age 13 and is co-captain of the team this year.

She was selected for the National Secondary School Girls’ U-19 team to represent New Zealand at the fiveday Dallas International Football Cup

Rebecca Hounsell Photograph: Conor Boyd from Conor Boyd Photography.

DIO TODAY

61

New cafeteria layout

We did not know what we were in for on Friday 27 January.

Following tradition, the Welcome Morning Tea and Picnic was set for the Friday of Anniversary Weekend. The RSVPs indicated we could expect a record number of attendees, but the weather forecast told us to batten down the hatches.

Not wanting to disappoint the hundreds of new Dio girls and families eager to attend, we devised a rain plan and hosted our largest and most successful Welcome Day yet. With help from the wonderful O Catering, which has worked with us on our Welcome Picnic for three years, we brought together the school and students for a jubilant day, despite the weather.

Proudly hosted by Parents and Friends, this event brings new students and their families to Dio before the start of the school year. We love the opportunity to meet new students and give families a chance to see the School and get to know one another.

New cafeteria layout

62

DIO TODAY

A common reaction at the Welcome Picnic was one of surprise and excitement as returning students entered the Dio Café.

Refurbishment is now complete, and the café looks stunning.

Our goal was to create a space where Dio students want to

LIVING Welcome picnic

Welcome picnic

be. With the help of Melissa Brady and the Dio Property Team, we succeeded. The new-look Dio Café is a beautiful, relaxing, urban space designed for the girls. Polished concrete floors, soothing tones of green, wooden tabletops and cozy corners create an atmosphere that could rival any Auckland café as the place to be for lunch.

Speaking of lunch, the café is busier than ever. Working with some amazing new suppliers, including Bowl and Arrow, OJI Sushi, and Krispy Kreme, the café offers students and staff a healthy lunch, a tasty snack or a sweet treat to keep them going through the day. We greatly appreciate our hardworking staff, the many Dio girls who volunteer, and our parent helpers. Anyone keen to volunteer or work in the café can email us on PFA@diocesan.school.nz Term 2 kicked off with another record-breaking event, as we held our Father-Daughter Breakfast for almost 600 guests. Sergeant Steve Pike of the NZ Police, Police Dog Section, quickly got everyone’s attention as he introduced his colleagues and canines. We heard of the hard work these policemen, policewomen and dogs do to safeguard our community and learned about the specialised training and incredible efforts of the Police Dog Section of the police force.

And yes, of course, there were puppies!

Back row: Sgt Steve Pike, Wayne Leach, AJ Gadson, Andy Dixon and Andy Cope Front row: Ava Leach, Eva Gadson, Ava Dixon and Jamie Cope.

Food was catered by the exceptional WooZoo Group, working alongside Jadcup, to ensure a zero-waste event with compostable products and packaging. Atomic’s coffee was perfect, Leigh Hart kindly gave his time to MC, and we had a host of amazing sponsors donating to our raffle prizes and the overall event.

Following the success of the breakfast, we have started planning for our next event. We can’t wait to entertain the Dio community with a night to be remembered. So don’t miss out on what will be the party of the year. Ticket sales start in July through iTicket for our event in mid-October.

As always, if you’re keen to volunteer or would like more information, we encourage you to contact us at PFA@diocesan.school.nz

William and Scarlett Main, Mike and Coco Bayley, Jonathan and Olivia Oram, and Mark and Zoe Ching.

DIO TODAY

63

FATHER-DAUGHTER BREAKFAST

64

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FR I E NDS

AUCKLAND DIOCESAN ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION (INC) PRESIDENT Penny Tucker (Macdonald) M. 021 256 0454 TREASURER Felicity Buche (Olson) FELLOWSHIP SECRETARY Emily Steel (Houlker) COMMITTEE Rachael Brand Sarah Couillault (Willis) Danielle Harper Sarahmarie Liebmann Sarah MacKenzie

From the president One of the best aspects of the president’s role in the Alumnae Association is hearing first-hand some of the inspiring, impressive, and immensely diverse stories related to alumnae achievements. We are diverse in every way. Members of our Dio tribe are making medicines, beautiful designs, lovely food, movies, successful campaigns on all sorts of issues, and tough business and legal decisions. We are thinkers, writers, community leaders, entrepreneurs, service providers, activists, academics, church leaders, and contributors in an astonishing range of fields. We hold together families, in some cases communities, and sometimes we are just holding it together ourselves or helping others to.

That’s legend right there!

So, how do we take this incredible resource and harness it for existing and future generations of alumnae? Through many means. As you know, we have a programme of events to acknowledge achievement and inspire others. One of

our 2023 goals is to add to this through the development of a series of podcasts so that people in our network can get access to insights and advice that might be useful to them. It won’t just be career focused; it will be broader than that.

We want to talk about success and failure. We want to talk about challenges and opportunities and luck. We want to talk about local and international experiences and the pathways to be more than you ever imagined.

We will be reaching out to a range of our members to ask whether they might be interested in contributing to our podcast library, which will be set up with easy search-and-click access in mind.

This is going to be a big 2023 project for us in addition to our usual slate of activities.

Just a couple of other quick things. I would like to acknowledge the newer members of our committee who have stepped up to fill some big shoes and who make me reflect frequently on how

Damaya Padupati (Rasanathan) Lena Saad Jenny Spillane (Orsborn) Vice president Sheryl Tan Susan Tapper Margaret Timms (Webster) Dio Today Editor, League pages Deirdre Coleman E. d.g@slingshot.co.nz Auckland Diocesan Alumnae Association PO Box 28-382, Remuera, Auckland 1541

fortunate we are to have such amazing volunteers in our midst. And, as always, in the ‘it takes a village’ category of thankfulness, the support we get from the team at Dio in School House makes me feel immensely grateful. In the build-up to some of the changes we made last year, I talked to many other similar associations to exchange views and gain their perspectives, and I feel particularly lucky to have the School so constructively and collaboratively engaged.

Ut Serviamus Penny Tucker Diocesan Alumnae Association President DIO TODAY

65

FOLLOWING IN

family footsteps In the April 2018 issue of Dio Today, we profiled the Phillips family and their 60-plus years of combined Dio schooling. Now we’ve discovered three more fifth-generation Diocesan families. Deirdre Coleman shares some of their school-day recollections.

Left: Lunchtime sunbathing - a favourite summertime activity for generations of Dio girls.

Below left: Patricia Rogerson’s 1938 school testimonial letter from headmistress Eliza Edwards.

Below: Mabel and Harry Rogerson (seated) with their daughters (L to R) Patricia, Glenn, Nancy, Mary and Lesley.

Note: The term ‘founding pupil’ is difficult to define. Diocesan School for Girls opened in Term 2 of 1904. Founding pupils could be limited to the 23 pictured in the first photo on School House steps, plus five other ‘originals’ not in the photo; or the definition could extend to include pupils in the School’s first year of operation from May 1904 to May 1905. ‘Early pupils’ are generally considered those who attended in Dio’s first decade as a school.

66

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

“There’s such a lovely sense of tradition associated with Dio for our family”

Left: Hemus family – (L to R back row) Magdelina (Maggie) and Florence (Flossie) Kirkpatrick; (front row) Olivia Kirkpatrick (Hemus), Kate Smith (Hemus), Pene Hemus (Jonas) and Hannah Warren (Hemus).

A crucial decision Dio alumna and parent Olivia Kirkpatrick (PY2000) may well have the School’s largest family of past and present students. Her extended family tree features 40-plus Dio alumnae or current students from both her mother’s and father’s sides, as well as her mother-in-law.

HEMUS/KIRKPATRICK FAMILY TREE Kathleen (Kitty) Ryder (Rogers)1916 Janet Romanes PY1952

Harry Rogerson

Nancy Hunter PY1934

Mary Laurie PY1937

Patricia Hemus PY1938

Pene Hemus (Jonas) PY1971

Roger Hemus

Had it not been for the decision of Olivia’s great grandfather, Harry Rogerson, it might well have been St Cuthbert’s laying claim to this extensive family of students. Harry and his wife Mabel sent the eldest of their five girls, Nancy, to St Cuthbert’s (Mabel’s former school). Nancy was bright but young for her year, and St Cuth’s wanted to hold her back. Less than impressed, Harry withdrew Nancy, announcing that he would be sending her and his four other daughters to Diocesan. Nancy’s siblings Mary Laurie, Lesley Truscott, Patricia Hemus and Glenn Shaw (mother of past Diocesan Old Girls’ League president Georgina Shaw) went on to have daughters, or daughters-in-law, who attended Dio, followed by their own daughters and granddaughters.

her granddaughter Bridget Romanes (PY1984) and her great granddaughter Kitty Greensill (PY2018).

The first generation in her family to attend Dio, Olivia tells us, was her great aunt Kathleen (Kitty) Ryder (Rogerson).

Kitty was the above-mentioned Harry’s half-sister. She was a pupil at Dio for the 1916 school year and was followed by her daughter Janet Ryder (PY1952),

While most of Olivia’s Dio family are from her dad’s side, her mum, Pene Hemus (Jonas) was a first-generation Dio student. She attended with her sister Fiona, and cousins Pip and Leonie Willis, whose daughters are also Dio alumnae.

Bridget Greensill PY1984 Kitty Greensill PY2018

Olivia Kirkpatrick PY2000

Maggie Kirkpatrick

Mabel Rogerson

Kate Smith PY2002

Lesley Truscott PY1941

Hannah Warren PY2005

Glenn Shaw PY1949

Georgina Shaw PY1980 Olivia Rose PY2012

Florence Kirkpatrick

Now, the fifth generation, Olivia’s daughters Maggie and Florence are at Dio in Years 7 and 5 respectively and may hopefully be joined by their younger cousins Honor and Olive.

“There’s such a lovely sense of tradition associated with Dio for our family,” says Olivia. “Mum and Dad got married at Dio and my eldest daughter was christened there.”

DIO TODAY

67

Games beneath the Norfolk pines Sarah Shorter (1977–1989) has seen both her daughters Sophie (PY2021) and Jessica (PY2019) progress through the Senior School and excel in the pool at swimming and water polo. Her nieces Jaime and Lauren are former Dio girls too. It was Sarah’s great grandmother Jessie Douglas (1905) who was the first of five generations of Dio girls.

uniforms and posture badges were given out for standing straight. She remembers making houses under the Norfolk pines, the same trees that her daughter Sarah would eventually play under when she went to Dio as a fourthgeneration student.

“I started in Lower Preps (now called Year 1) and left partway through 7th Form,” says Sarah. “Dawn Jones was

headmistress that entire time. Mrs Ryde was my art teacher and she taught Jess and Sophie. I had Mrs Corlett as my PE teacher. She won gold in the long jump at the 1952 Olympics.”

“The two swimming pools were outdoors on the same site as the current Aquatic Centre. There were ham-andcoleslaw rolls from the tuck shop and we only had four houses.”

Jessie’s daughter-in-law Elsie Shorter (Tattley) attended Dio (1923–1930) with her sister Cecilie, followed by Elsie’s daughter-in-law Jenneymae Shorter (Salter, 1956–1964).

Shorter family (L to R) Sarah Shorter, Jenneymae Shorter (Salter) and Jessica Shorter-Robinson; (inset) Sophie Shorter-Robinson who is studying in the USA.

Jenneymae says that class captains wore a star like a sheriff on their

“…class captains wore a star like a sheriff on their uniforms and posture badges were given out for standing straight.”

Jenneymae Shorter (Salter) seated in the front row centre wearing the class captain’s star badge.

SHORTER FAMILY Jessie Douglas 1907 Elsie Shorter (Tattley) 1930

Eric Shorter

Paul Shorter

Jenneymae Shorter (Salter) PY1964

Sarah Shorter PY1989

Jessica Shorter-Robinson PY2019

68

DIO TODAY

Sophie Shorter-Robinson PY2021

LIFELONG FRIENDS

PHILLIPS FAMILY

Annie Dunn (Gibbons) 1909-1910

Constance Phillips (Craig) 1904-1908

Moira Jean Phillips (Dunn) 1940-1951

Paul Phillips

Julie Wood (Phillips) PY1975

Patricia Lowther (Phillips) PY1976 Emma Dalton (Lowther) PY2000

Isabella Dalton Scarlett Dalton Right: Phillips family – (L to R) Julie Wood (Phillips), Moira Phillips (Dunn), Scarlett Dalton, Isabella Dalton, Emma Dalton (Lowther), and Patricia (Trish) Lowther (Phillips).

Damp togs, climbing ropes and skits for Miss Shrewsbury Patricia (Trish) Lowther (Phillips) and Julie Wood (Phillips) attended Dio during the ’60s and ’70s. The sisters have early Dio student family members on both their mother’s and father’s sides, and our April 2018 article recounts the Dio recollections of their mother Moira. Trish recalls some school-day memories of her own that might sound familiar.

“In summer, my favourite past-time was swimming at lunchtimes in the outdoor pool and hanging our togs on the lines hoping for a dry pair for PE later in the day. We’d sunbathe with coconut oil slathered on our legs and uniforms folded up high enough to prevent a tan line. I remember an occasional frown from a passing teacher.

“Our blue woollen hats spent a lot of time folded up in our bags and made for some very interestingly shaped heads when donned to go home. There was detention at the gate if you didn’t have it on.”

Blessed with lifelong friends, Julie treasures her Dio years. “I’m most proud of the fact that my grandmothers, Connie and Dorothy, my mother Moira Jean, my sister Trish, her daughter

Emma and now her daughters Isabella and Scarlet are all Dio girls,” she says.

“We’ve all loved being girls of ‘the DHS’.

The girls today are insanely fortunate to have the level of facilities, breadth of curriculum, standards of teaching and pastoral direction that Dio offers now.”

Julie remembers the farewell concert the Junior School put on for Miss Shrewsbury.

“Each year performed a skit, and we did drawings that went into a big book for her – all terribly naive and unprofessional compared with today’s events.

“The intermediate school was a long block of four classrooms where the allweather hockey field is now. There was still an orchard and garden behind Miss Robertson’s house across the path from the music block. I had piano lessons there with Miss Dowding and Miss Hutton ruled the music world.

“We played tennis on School House lawn and the old gymnasium had a trampoline, climbing ropes, leather-topped vaulting boxes, and wooden balancing beams.

Hockey, athletics and cricket were held on the lawn by Dilworth.”

Above right: Moira Phillips (Dunn) top left with some classmates in the 1940s.

Right: Patricia Lowther (Phillips) and Julie Wood (Phillips) in the 1960s.

DIO TODAY

69

Left: Joyce Duthie (middle row, second from left) with the English branch of the Diocesan Old Girls League, 1931.

Below: Pamela, Patricia and Joan Duthie.

West family – (L to R) Hilary West-Reeve (West), Jo (Joanna) West (Kingston), and Naomi Reeve.

Fond memories of Miss Jensen For Joanna West (Kingston, PY1963), attending Dio meant following in the footsteps of her mother Patricia Kingston (Duthie, PY1939), her aunts Joan and Pamela, and her great aunt Joyce Duthie (1909–1915).

Joyce won the divinity prize at Dio and received a book embossed with the Diocesan crest that the family donated to the Archive.

“After school, Joyce remained a spinster and lived in Upper Hutt,”

WEST FAMILY Joyce Duthie 1909-1915

Son

Pamela Holland (Duthie) PY1937

Patricia Kingston (Duthie) PY1939 Joanna West (Kingston) PY1963 Hilary West PY1993 Naomi Reeve

70

DIO TODAY

Joan Naismith (Duthie) PY1936

recalls Joanna. “She was always rather bossy, but she was a beautiful knitter and would make clothes for my doll.”

Of her mother and aunts, Joanna says: “Mum was very sporty and led the choir. She was beautiful and had a lovely voice. Her two sisters were much more academic. Joan went to Auckland University at 16 and did a Bachelor of Music.”

Joanna speaks fondly of Miss Jensen, a much-loved history, Latin and English teacher from 1937 to 1964.

“She had a lifelong friendship with our family. Miss Jensen was Mum’s 5th Form teacher, and her ambition was to teach me also, but we moved to Dunedin when I was 12. She used to holiday with us at Tāwharanui and would do side stroke in the surf in her green woollen bathing suit. She sewed white lace across the top of it to make it more glamorous. Her fiancé died in the war, and she lived into her 90s but never married. Our bach, Possum Cottage, had no running water or showers and only two bedrooms so the whole family had to sleep in one bedroom so Miss Jensen could have the other.

“In the year that I would have left Dio (1963) if I’d stayed, she gave me a copy of the book she’d given her whole

graduating class. It was The 10 Commandments. I still have it.”

Patricia died before Joanna’s daughter, Hilary, started at Dio so never got to see her granddaughter attend. Now, Mimi (Naomi) Reeve, Hilary’s daughter is in Year 3.

“Mimi thrived from the moment she started at Dio,” says Joanna. “She knows she’s a fifth-generation girl but doesn’t really understand yet what that means.”

Painting a complete picture of the multi-generation families who have attended Dio is no easy task.

Memories fade, names and events are forgotten, and stories get lost as senior generations pass away. What’s more, with female students, matching maiden and married names to school records and connecting different branches of family trees can be problematic. In some cases, we’ve included alumnae’s attendance dates, elsewhere we refer to their peer year (PY). See page 80 for an explanation of this.

If you know of any any fourth or fifth-generation Dio families, please contact Abby McWilliam in the Diocesan Development Office: amcwilliam@diocesan.school.nz

2

LIFELONG FRIENDS

WOMEN

WATCH

The W2W Awards celebrate the achievements of Diocesan alumnae under the age of 36. The 2023 winners are Melany Sun-Min Park (2004) and Natasha Wright (2005) who were honoured at a full school assembly in the Diocesan Performing Arts Centre on Thursday 23 March.

NATASHA WRIGHT

Natasha Wright is a New York-based artist who attended Dio between 2001 and 2005. During her final school years, she received a Scholars’ Award, was on the Visual Arts and Ball Committees and was debating captain.

“I loved my time at Dio and feel so lucky to have been a student there,” she says.

“Dio gave me so many opportunities outside of daily classes – from classics trips to Italy, Shakespeare festivals, rowing camps and debating – and the belief that anything is possible.”

Natasha took as many art classes as she could, including painting, printmaking, design and art history. She recalls the rule-breaking efforts she and her friends

went to in order to spend more time doing art.

“The art department was usually open after school until 5pm when security guards searched the building, locked all doors and set the alarms. It dawned on us how much work we could get through if we stayed in the building for a further five hours. At 4:50pm we’d assume our hiding places in cupboards or the school dark room. We’d then work late into the night.”

On leaving school, Natasha studied design and management at Parsons, The New School in New York and subsequently graduated with a Bachelor of Design from Massey University Wellington in 2010.

Natasha in her New York studio working on ‘The Waiting Women’.

DIO TODAY

71

“Dio gave me so many opportunities outside of daily classes – from classics trips to Italy, Shakespeare festivals, rowing camps and debating – and the belief that anything is possible.”

She did the Visual Arts Foundation course at Central St Martins, London, and in 2017 obtained her master’s in fine arts from the New York Studio School, winning the prestigious LCU Award, a New York Studio School scholarship, and the Jane Chase Carroll Merit Award.

Since graduating, Natasha has worked as a full-time artist, exhibiting across the US, New Zealand and Australia in multiple group and solo shows. Her paintings depict the representation of women throughout history. Some include references to the three graces, ancient fertility goddesses and contemporary culture.

“My work explores the significance of the female body as an icon,” she says.

“My practice probes the politics of the representation of the female form.

Gender and sexuality, vulnerability and power, seduction and aggression; these dualities motivate the dynamics of my work. The women I paint balance the grotesque and beautiful. The paintings are rooted in the body but take on abstract forms and shapes.”

Top: Natasha Wright’s parents, Warwick and Christina, with her brother Alexander and sister-in-law Stephanie Poole.

Above: New York-based artist Natasha Wright.

72

DIO TODAY

Drawing is a key part of Natasha’s practice and where 99% of her ideas start. Her works often include materials such as oil, glass, black magnum and sand, and her favourite palette combines rich golds, earth tones and a variety of blacks.

“I believe paintings have the power to

change the way we see the world, and to take you somewhere else. I want to create paintings that are filled with feeling. The beauty of painting is you never really know whose life you’re going to inspire or impact.”

While she’s grateful to be pursuing her passion, Natasha says there’s nothing glamorous about being an artist – she’s running a small business with taxes, bookkeeping and shipping issues.

And with her creative output, consistency is essential for success.

“The art world can be a tricky place to navigate. I’ve learned it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And half the battle is just showing up. I work every day, not just when I’m inspired or feel like it.

When I take the pressure off making a masterpiece and I’m in a good working routine, something always comes out of it.

“I’d like to thank Shelley Ryde for always encouraging and inspiring me and my wonderful parents for their belief and commitment to my work.”

When she’s not painting, Natasha does some voluntary work at the Exceptional Artists Foundation in New York and has collaborated with Art Start on a range of hand-painted jeans with a charitable purpose. She loves wandering around the Lower East Side and Tribeca looking at art galleries or exploring new restaurants and bars.

LIFELONG FRIENDS

DR MELANY SUN-MIN PARK

“Dio has shaped and defined who I have become today, and I am truly grateful”

Melany is an architectural historian, and a design and workplace strategist who attended Dio from 1999 to 2004, starting in Year 8, after her family moved to New Zealand from South Korea. In her final year, she was Deputy Head Prefect, leader of the Chamber Orchestra, sang in the Senior Choir and played in the Concert Band and Sinfonia.

She received a full scholarship for academic excellence, all-round ability and leadership potential to the University of Auckland, where she did a Bachelor of Architectural Studies. In 2007, she was named a Senior Scholar (the top 1% of the graduating class) and won the New Zealand Institute of Architects Prize for Design.

“Dio has shaped and defined who I have become today, and I am truly grateful,” she says. “From Mrs Shelley Ryde’s painting and art classes to Mr David Gordon’s music lessons and orchestras, the opportunities to try and challenge myself in any creative pursuit led me to my eventual dream of becoming an architect.”

Melany worked at New Zealand architectural firm Stephenson & Turner before earning master’s degrees in art business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in Singapore, architecture at the National University of Singapore, and the history and philosophy of design.

Realising she could make more impact through deep research and teaching design, she pursued a PhD in architecture at Harvard University.

Her dissertation on the architecture, industrial expertise and scientific knowledge in post-war Korea has been lauded for its significant contribution to the field of Korean history and modern architectural history.

Challenging herself beyond what’s comfortable, continuing to learn, and staying curious are what drives Melany.

“My eight years at Harvard studying and teaching as a doctoral fellow made it clear that the students who make it to Harvard are driven by one common denominator – curiosity. It’s far less about smarts, but the determination to always ask questions.”

With a PhD under her belt, Melany joined Gensler, the world’s largest architectural firm. In her role as a design strategist, she investigated how improving the design of corporate workspaces could make employees feel happier, and more valued and productive. She also advised multinational corporations and tertiary institutions on their post-COVID returnto-office strategies.

Melany is a committee member of the Trustees Reservation, one of the world’s oldest land conservation non-profits and the largest charity in Massachusetts. She urges others to think about what we can contribute to society at large.

“My time at Dio led me to think broadly about our motto, Ut Serviamus, and how service can and should extend beyond our immediate circles,” she says.

In March 2023, she accepted the role of

Top: Dr Melany Sun-Min Park Above: Melany’s friends (L to R) Anna Southwell, Sophie Gilmour, Angela Coe and Stephanie Pow celebrating her achievement.

Senior Product Manager at Outer Labs, a tech company that builds software to help brands design and manage their real estate portfolios.

“Every career or life transition for me has been about making intentional choices and changes. While change can’t always be controlled or predicted, I’ve always lived by the rule my father taught me: opportunities only come to those who are prepared. If you’re always ready and prepare yourself to the best of your abilities, the next challenge or change you’re looking for will come to you and you will be ready for it.”

Melany married Travis Hughes at the MIT Chapel in 2019. They now have a baby daughter, Isla, and live in Boston.

DIO TODAY

73

ONE FINAL

celebration On Saturday 3 December 2022, 137 Dio graduates and their families gathered at the Cordis Hotel for the last event of their school lives, the Diocesan Graduation Ball. Unfortunately, COVID kept a few graduates away, but those who attended enjoyed a night they’ll long remember.

The event kicked off with pre-dinner drinks and photographs. Our thanks again to Cactus Photography for beautifully capturing everyone on this special evening.

At 7pm, the doors to the ballroom opened revealing an elegant palette of silver and white, and an eye-catching balloon arch on the stage. Penny Tucker, President of the Diocesan Alumnae Association, welcomed the graduates and Margaret van Meeuwen, the MC for the night, expertly guided the evening’s proceedings and delivered her own warm message to the girls. Principal Heather McRae then presented each graduate with a scroll as they crossed the stage and became Diocesan alumnae

74

DIO TODAY

The first dance was to Elton John’s Tiny Dancer, and as always, the Velvet Tones had everyone boogeying into the night.

A heartfelt thank-you to Emma Cleary and Tania Fairgray, who once again organised an unforgettable Grad Ball. Their daughters, Isabella and Ella, graduated in 2022, making this event extra special and the final Grad Ball Tania and Emma will organise. Emma has helped plan the ball since 2014 and Tania since 2018.

To view and order photos of the 2022 Diocesan Graduation Ball, visit cactusphotography.co.nz

DIO TODAY

75 LIFELONG FRIENDS

New hope

FOR SUFFERERS OF RARE CONDITION Dio alumna Distinguished Professor Dame Margaret Brimble (Macmillan, 1978) has had another huge success in her pioneering clinical research work.

In 2002, Margaret and her team of biologists at the University of Auckland created a molecule that could now help improve the lives of the one in 10,000 girls affected by Rett syndrome. This rare neurological disorder affects girls almost exclusively. It causes symptoms similar to autism or cerebral palsy, leading to a loss of communication skills and motor control.

Baby girls with Rett syndrome lose their motor and cognitive function at around 18 months old. Many require 24-hour care

Professor Dame Margaret Brimble (Macmillan, 1978)

and their life expectancy can be reduced to around 30 years. Up until now there was no way to treat the condition.

“Twenty years ago, we made a molecule that we called NNZ2566 that the World Health Organization then called trofinetide,” says Margaret. “It was developed for traumatic brain injury, but was trialled in Rett syndrome.”

While trofinetide was never used to treat brain injuries, clinical trials began in 2012 for Rett syndrome. The phase three trial showed improved verbal, cognitive and motor skills in trial participants.

In March this year, the FDA granted approval for trofinetide, marketed as Daybue™. It’s the first drug given the goahead to treat Rett syndrome and could help reverse some of its symptoms.

In children with the syndrome, mutations in a gene called MECP2 prevent a molecule that’s essential to cognitive and motor function from forming. Trofinetide is a synthetic version of that molecule.

A few days before receiving FDA approval, Dame Margaret appeared on TVNZ’s Seven Sharp to talk about the impact of this development.

“This is huge. You work your whole life as a medicinal chemist thinking one day you might make a drug that could go into human clinical trials. That’s big enough, but to actually have it go through clinical trials, right through phase one, phase two, phase three and being on the brink of approval to be used in patients is huge. I never dreamed this would ever happen.”

The drug is now available commercially in the United States, and the hope is that early treatment when a young child is first diagnosed might see reversal of the syndrome.

“I’m over the moon for all of the families who need the drug,” says Margaret. “It’s a horrible disease, and finally there’s a treatment. We’ve waited so long for this.”

Dame Margaret is Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. In 2019, she was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019 for her services to science and her contributions to research in medicinal chemistry.

She and her team are working on another promising neurological drug called NNZ2591. It has FDA approval to enter phase two clinical trials for the treatment of Phelan-McDermid syndrome, Angelman syndrome, Pitt-Hopkins syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome.

76

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

Left: Pat Hope (left) with her French penfriend Marie Jeanne Poux during Pat’s last visit to France in August 2013.

Below: Pat at school during the 1950s (back row, second from left).

A French connection In 1954, Dio alumna Pat Hope (Toomey) began writing to her French penfriend, Marie Jeanne Poux (known as Mijane).

As 13-year-olds, they had no idea their correspondence would lead to a lifelong friendship that’s still going strong 70 years later.

Pat and Mijane’s introduction came about purely by chance. During a trip to France, Pat’s French teacher, Miss Marjorie Daniel, visited the Parisian high school Lycée Camille Sée. While there, she set up a penfriend exchange between Mijane’s English class and her own Diocesan French class. Gushing about her homeland, Miss Daniel suggested the students write to a girl in New Zealand, and sent this parcel of letters home to Auckland. Pat’s excellent written reply earned her the privilege of selecting which French student would be her pen pal. She chose Mijane.

“The idea was that I would write in French and she would write in English,” explains Pat. “But her English is

absolutely perfect, and I found it difficult to make an interesting letter out of my French, so we eventually agreed to correspond in English.”

The teenagers wrote to each other a few times a year, exchanging birthday cards, aerograms and small gifts at Christmas.

With the responsibilities of adulthood, their letters became less frequent, but never stopped. After leaving school, Pat worked as a librarian in Parnell before marrying, moving to Te Puke and starting a family with her husband Michael. In Europe, Mijane led a very different life as a tour guide and frequent traveller.

Then in 1966, spurred by Pat’s repeated invitations, Mijane confirmed she was coming to New Zealand.

She describes that initial meeting after 12 years of exchanging letters: “The most amazing thing is that when Pat and I met after my three-week voyage to New Zealand, it was close friendship at first sight!”

A farm in Te Puke was a massive change for a girl who’d grown up in post-war Paris, but Mijane was so taken by New Zealand that she extended her visit to nine months and found a job at Victoria University. She made friends, toured the

country, and became godmother to Pat’s second-born son.

In subsequent years, Pat visited France several times and Mijane made more trips to New Zealand.

“It’s been a lifelong friendship,” says Pat. “We know each other very well indeed.

We’re like sisters but we don’t fight.”

Both have two sons and their families and grandchildren have continued the Franco-Kiwi connection, visiting each other’s countries.

“In 2013, when I went and stayed with Mijane in Paris for six weeks, we had a lovely time and I started picking up more of the language,” says Pat. “Sadly, I knew it would be my last trip to France. I love France and I miss Mijane – she feels the same – but we email and speak on the phone all the time.”

Thanks to her husband’s work, Pat has lived in a number of North Island towns, as well as in Noosa and Papua New Guinea, where she continued working as a librarian.

While most of the letters she and Mijane exchanged over the decades were lost in those moves, both women cherish their memories of anticipating and receiving news from the other side of the world.

DIO TODAY

77

from Giltrap Audi. Sarah Aston from New World Mt Roskill and Rosie Hitchcock from New World Botany kindly provided hampers as prizes, and $700 was raised for the Hawkes Bay Winegrowers Cyclone Gabrielle Relief Fund.

IN THE SWING OF THINGS On Monday 3 April, 64 keen golfers took to the greens at Akarana Golf Course fo a shotgun start at the annual Bryan Bartley Golf Day. The teams consisted mostly of women, but there were also two men’s teams and three mixed teams.

Fortunately, the rain held off until everyone had returned to the clubhouse for canapés, drinks and prizegiving.

Thanks to this year’s generous sponsors: Mike Moynihan Golf, Susan Farron Golf, Forewinds Golf Clothing, and Pene Hemus

Get the gang 1 back together If you’re interested in reconnecting with old school friends from your year group, there are a number of different reunion options:

ounders’ Day reunion (preferred F option) – This is a cocktail event hosted by the Alumnae Association on Founders’ Day, 4 November 2023. While there will be other alumnae on site, your year group will be identifiable with nametags.

After the cocktails, your reunion group can continue the celebrations at a venue of your choosing. This is a great option for first-year-out alumnae.

Once again, event organisers Kathie Sammons (Bartley), Kirsty Eady (McDonald), Sarah Couillault (Willis) and Kate Eatts, Diocesan’s Development and Community Relations Manager, did an outstanding job.

Kathie, Bryan Bartley’s daughter, says she subsequently received some great texts and emails from those who enjoyed the day. “It’s always been a ‘friendraising’, rather than a fundraising, event and everyone loved catching up with old friends,” she says. “There was a lovely vibe in the clubhouse afterwards.”

The 2024 Bryan Bartley Golf Day is pencilled in for late March at Akarana Golf Club in Mt Roskill. If you’d like to be added to the database for this event, please email kathie@ marvellousmarketing.co.nz

2

ecade reunion – Diocesan can D help with some of the planning for a decade reunion to celebrate 10, 20, 30 or 40 years out from your final year at school. You’ll need to contact us well in advance to make sure your proposed dates don’t clash with anything else on the school calendar. Note: there is a cost per person with this option.

3

ff-campus reunion – If you want O to plan an event at an off-site location, the team at the Diocesan Development Office can help you get in touch with classmates from your year group.

If you’d like to organise or host a class reunion in 2023, contact the Development Office: development@ diocesan.school.nz. You can also stay connected through the Diocesan Alumnae Association page on Facebook and through the ‘Our Community’ page at diocesan.school.nz

78

DIO TODAY

LIFELONG FRIENDS

A warm reception for alumnae mums Maree Gladding (Oliver) and Jo Turner (Appleby)

The Diocesan Alumnae Association, together with the School, hosted our annual breakfast for alumnae Dio parents on Friday 12 May. Jen Bilkey from Browns in Remuera dropped off warm mini-muffins, fresh filled croissants, pastries, cereal and fruit treats. The morning was cold, so the coffee machine/handwarming station was popular.

What wasn’t cold was the atmosphere in what was the old dining room in School House as women connected with peers and other parents who have been on a Dio journey for years, even generations.

We initiated this event because the School family is important to many of our alumnae who have chosen to put their daughters onto a path they previously walked.

That’s the fun thing about this event – the stories that emerge and the reflections on Dio’s evolution. Heather McRae spoke about issues associated with academic and forwardthinking planning. With respect to issues around NCEA, by the time you read this, the School will have clearly set out its perspectives.

There was a brief reference to the alumnae theme for this year, which is about packaging and delivering mentoring capacity to current students and former pupils of any age.

Casey McPike (Fletcher) Melissa Bridge (Thrupp), Anne O’Hanlon (Crockett) and Julia Ngan (Lim) Susan Tapper and Liz Eglinton (Tingey)

Elizabeth Massey (Davies) and Emily Steel (Houlker)

Danielle Harper (Benjamin), Deborah Malaghan (Gelb) and Arabella Brawn (Vennell)

Tonia Williams and Camilla Ngatai (Edwards)

Danielle Harper, a valued member of our committee, was our point person on this and, as always, Angela Coe, Kate Eatts and crew were astonishingly efficient.

UPCOMING EVENTS DIO ALUMNAE BAPTISMS

Sunday 13 August and Sunday 5 November Baptisms will take place in the Chapel of our Glorified Lord at 12pm. For inquiries, contact Bronwyn Humby, PA – Chaplaincy Support at bhumby@diocesan.school.nz

ALUMNA MERITA ASSEMBLY This is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday 5 September in the Diocesan Arts Centre.

YEAR 13 GRADUATION BALL Saturday 9 December Cordis Hotel, Symonds Street

The day will begin at around 2pm with the Diocesan Alumnae Association AGM in School House, followed by a high tea for the Senior Old Girls in the School Hall, a chapel service and then cocktails in the Arts Centre.

DIO TODAY

79

Wendy Gentry (Marshall, PY1962) on 8 May 2023

MILESTONES

Ann (Cree) Harland (Munro, PY947) on 18 February 2023 Jordan Harris (PY2011) on 16 April 2023

BIRTHS

MARRIAGES

Marianne Allen – daughters Inès on 9 March 1992 and Katia on 27 November 1997

Bronte Sewell to Edward Lu on 20 February 2022

Lucette Chu (Dillon) – a son, Max, on 21 October 2022 Natalie Field (Van Beurden) – a son, Rafferty, on 7 October 2022 Rachel Leeder (Voss) – a daughter, Zara, on 24 October 2021 Jillian McKenzie (Boulton) – sons Lincoln and Fletcher Jessica Priestley – sons Robert in 2020 and Fergus in 2022 Emily Thomas (Mamo) – a daughter, Molly, on 14 November 2022 Lisa Tsai – a son, Lewis, on 16 March 2023

Hermione Lee (Clarke, PY1950) on 17 January 2023 Lady Isobel McMullin (Atkinson, PY1949) on 28 April 2023

Riley Sewell to Jack Kehoe on 28 January 2023

Elizabeth (Wyn) Parr (Gould, PY1954) on 15 November 2022

DEATHS Marguerita Cameron (Murie, PY1957) on 14 February 2023 Noeline Codlin (Batty, PY1946) on 7 February 2023 Samantha (Sam) Craycraft (Ellis, PY1990) on 31 December 2022 Averil Day (Prangley, PY1954) on 24 November 2022 Josephine Fisher (PY1965) on 2 May 2023

ACHIEVEMENTS Marianne Allen gained a BA from Massey University, a Diploma in French studies from Otago University and a Graduate Diploma in Teaching and a Postgraduate Diploma in French studies from the University of Auckland. She also completed her studies in Te Reo Conversational Māori at AUT University.

Alice Hamilton gained a BA from the University of Auckland in 2004, a Graduate Diploma in Secondary School Teaching in 2007 and a Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Leadership in 2017.

Christine Jensen graduated from the University of Auckland in 2018 with a BCom in marketing and international business.

Jennifer (Duo) Jiang graduated with a BCom (First Class Honours) from the University of Sydney in 2001.

Riley Kehoe (Sewell) graduated from the University of Auckland in 2016 with a BCom in commercial law and management. She gained her Master’s in Global Leadership (Hons) from Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, California) in 2021.

Anna Lehmann gained a BSc (Hons) at the University of Auckland in 2005 and completed her PhD at Australian National University in 2010. In 2013 she graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing, and gained her Master of Nursing in 2019, both from the University of Auckland.

Alison Phillips (McLean, PY1967) on 22 April 2023 Patricia Pope (Murdoch, PY1955) on 15 March 2023 Rosemary Powell (Main, PY1953) on 5 February 2023 Dorothy (Anne) Stuart (PY1967) on 29 December 2022 Shirley Sutherland (Nixon, PY1953) on 5 December 2022 Althea (Jill) Thorne (Beachen, PY1946) on 19 December 2022

As always, if you have any milestones to share – births, engagements, marriages, achievements or deaths – please contact Kate Eatts at the Development Office: keatts@diocesan.school.nz or use the online Stay Connected form in the latest Diocesan Alumnae Association email.

Trusted care in the comfort of your home.

We provide skilled and compassionate caregivers for:

In-Home Care 24 Hour Care Post-Operative Palliative Care

Jillian McKenzie (Bolton) became a member of Nanette Cameron’s Design Guild.

Note: PY is short for ‘Peer Year’ and indicates the year an alumna (Old Girl) would have been in Form 7 (Year 13) had she continued her schooling at Dio through until the end.

80

DIO TODAY

Call or email us for a free no obligation assessment: T: 09 579-1212 E: office@katemcleanhomecare.co.nz W: katemcleanhomecare.co.nz

Kate McLean Homecare

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)

Caring and professional breast care delivered by our multidisciplinary team • Breast Cancer Management, Surgery, Reconstruction • Breast Examination • Ultrasound

breastassociates.co.nz

S MILE W ITH C ONFIDENCE

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

• Family History Clinic • Breast Pain • Lactational Problems

(09) 522 1346

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

Building meaning and lasting memories through grief

09 638 9026

|

DAVISFUNERALS.CO.NZ

The all new Grecale Trofeo Available to Test Drive at Winger Auckland THE ALL NEW MASERATI GRECALE TROFEO Showcasing the patented race-derived Nettuno V6 engine.

A powerful, yet efficient SUV that makes your everyday exceptional.

WINGER MASERATI 21 Great South Road, Newmarket 1051 +64 9 520 1588 winger.co.nz/maserati

WINGER AUCKLAND