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Principal's Blog: Term 1 Week 1
Friday, 27 January 2023
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Kia ora whānau Welcome to 2023 at Marsden, a new year, and a new-look newsletter that has been delivered to your inboxes at a new time. We hope you enjoy the fresh format, which has been designed to streamline information and provide an improved user experience. Whilst this newsletter is intended for our entire Marsden community, the weekly comment from our Head of Primary, Joanna Burns, will find its way to caregivers through Seesaw, the preferred way of communicating between home and school at Marsden Primary. We hope you find our revised communications easier to navigate, and more helpful in enabling ready access to aspects most relevant to you and your child. I look forward to hearing your impressions. We are thrilled to have notification of 2022 NCEA pass rates with student achievement at 96% at Level 1, 97% at Level 2, and 98% at Level 3. Impressively, our Excellence Endorsements are equally at incredibly high percentage rates with 62% at Level 1, 55% at Level 2 and 50% at Level 3. At this moment in time, these academic results remain unconfirmed by NZQA, and we do not yet have access to national comparative data. We will bring finalised, confirmed data to you in due course. Congratulations to all students who gave their best effort in their academic endeavours across another year of uncertainty and disruption, with results that are testament to outstanding effort and diligence. Remaining consistently open for business with rigorous teaching and learning within our hybrid model across the Omicron wave and beyond, was made possible because of the commitment and professionalism of our staff, who were resolute in providing a first-class educational experience. Ad Summa! I am pleased to announce that we are fully staffed and are thrilled to be welcoming new Head of PE and Health, Juliet McGrath, and new teacher of Food Technology, Milan Kostanich to the Marsden family, and we also warmly welcome back from maternity leave Mathematics teacher Kirin Fahey. We are fortunate that Acting Director of Sport, Cameron Burns has returned and that the recently retired Jane Hazelton has taken on the small but important role of responsibility for the William Pike Challenge and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Additionally, Mia Drew-Crawshaw, our Youth Leader, will be further engaged at Marsden this year as a part time Teacher Aide. We are excited to be opening the school year with a transition day for new students on Tuesday 31 st January. Year 7 will be with us all day, whilst newcomers at other year levels will be with us for the best part of the morning. The whole school will begin with a pōwhiri following Form Time on Wednesday 1 February. We look forward, with great anticipation, to meeting and greeting new students and their supporters on arrival and will provide directions to the assembly point in Sheppard/Wake. We look forward to warmly welcoming returning students and our new contingent and wish them every success and happiness as they turn the page on an exciting new chapter in the story of their inspiring young lives at Marsden, where every individual is supported to flourish and thrive. Ngā mihi nui Paula Wells Principal |