Newsletter for August

Tēnā koutou katoa


I have recently enrolled a number of new students to the school and I would like to welcome them and their families to our school. Our net loss of students between the first of March count and first of July count was only 10 students. Given that schools naturally have a lot of senior leavers during the year this is a very encouraging statistic.

A recent assembly celebrated the success of our students in NCEA for 2007. We also took the opportunity to backdate for 2006 when the endorsement concept didn’t exist. Specifically we awarded ‘scholar’ badges to students who received endorsements for merit or excellence in NCEA. An endorsement means that at least 50 of the credits were either at merit or excellence standard. Clearly this is a tough award to gain and we awarded over thirty ‘scholar’ badges for level 1, nearly twenty for level 2. Eight students received a combination Level1/Level 2 ‘scholar’ badge. Congratulations to all of our scholars.

Staff news: We have recently farewelled our audio-visual technician – Troy Egan. We congratulate Matt Coleman on his promotion to Head of Science at St Mary’s Diocesan School. Matt has been here for a little over six years and richly deserves his promotion. We will formally farewell him at the end of this term.

I have recently started a blog (an on-line diary or journal) to share some thoughts and ideas with the community. You can access it via our website www.stratfordhigh.school.nz or else go directly to http://shsprincipal.blogspot.com . Recent posts concern our very successful open evening for new students and Yale University’s open (and free) courses.

Term three is the term for us to firmly focus on achievement in the remaining internal standards that students face before many take on the external standards in term 4. A recent survey of our Poutama programme indicated that nearly 70% of students have completed at least one of their goals and reset other goals. This is a very encouraging sign as we enter the business end of the academic year. I encourage all students to continue to revisit their Poutama goals with the focus on internal standards in the next eight weeks. As Qui-Jon Jinn says, “Your focus determines your reality”


Nā Warren Purdy
Principal