February 2014
Dear Parents/Caregivers Welcome to 2014 and another Tauranga Girls’ College year, offering opportunities, challenges and growth for all our students as they take up all the college has to offer and work to achieve their learning goals. The year has begun well with our Year 9 powhiri and welcome assemblies. On Friday of this week at our school wide assemblies we will acknowledge the student leaders of the school, our prefects and also celebrate the outstanding results from NCEA in 2013. Each week at this school we have a proverb, a whakatauki to focus our learning environment. This week’s proverb is Ki te Taumata - Get there with learning. While learning occurs in all situations it is the positive learning that we focus on here which will ensure that all our students get to the goals that are theirs for this year. Those outstanding NCEA results for 2013, while still preliminary, show that our students continue their high performance at all levels against National Benchmarks for girls, girls in Decile 6 schools and Maori girls. Our Year 13 results were particularly pleasing and for our Maori students at that level were extremely positive.
High standards, Respect building, Community participation and belonging Student leadership Pride and a sense of purpose in learning Positive student staff relationships
And, full attendance, good uniform and punctuality sit behind all of the above as givens on the road to success. Congratulations to Head Girl Adriana Bird, Deputy Head Girl Molly Scoular-Sutton, Arts Director Tessa Adams, Sports Captain Huia Ackerman and all our newly elected prefects as they take up their leadership roles for 2014. We look forward to the culture that their leadership of the student body will evolve over the coming year. In the calendar at the back of this newsletter and on our website through our daily notices is information on the many events of this term. I look forward to meeting you at the various activities as we work together to ensure that every student here becomes an empowered woman of tomorrow.
Congratulations to the students achieving those results and to the staff and parents who have supported them in achieving their goals. Our School theme for 2014 is “Positive Learning Environments”, beginning with tutorial time to start the day and supported by our three core values of respect, participation and pride. We will be focussing on:
Pauline Cowens Principal